PA Must Reform Its Judicial Selection System
Castaneda Library, Wikimedia Commons
This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire
By Christopher Brooks
Real Clear Wire
Complaints about how Pennsylvania selects its appellate judges are nothing new. The January 1964 Citizens Conference reasoned that “the objective of any method of [judicial] selection should be to obtain judges free of political bias and collateral influences.” The Conference report concluded that “Pennsylvania has been fortunate in securing many excellent judges,” though despite, not because of, its “partisan political election” system.
It’s not because of the millions spent on appellate judicial races, either. The 2023 Supreme Court campaign cost approximately $22 million. To put that into perspective, the governor approved $19.4 million for all Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice and staff salaries,
