Cash on the scales: Special interests seek to buy the judges they want
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Lady Justice is often depicted blindfolded to signify that outside influence does not tip the scales she holds to weigh the truth. Unfortunately, the scales are being tipped by special interests that pour money into judicial elections to get a desired result.
Too often it is the voters themselves who are blind to what is going on, yet this is a national problem and Pennsylvania is affected worse than most.
A report by the Justice at Stake Campaign, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and the National Institute on Money in State Politics details the threat, a trend not helped by the Citizens United ruling in which the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the law on corporate and union funding of elections.
"The story of the 2009-2010 elections and their aftermath in state legislatures in 2011," the report says, "reveals a coalescing national campaign that seeks to intimidate America's state judges into becoming accountable to money and ideologies instead of the constitution and the law." The most recent election cycle poses "some of the gravest threats yet to fair and impartial justice in America."
Nearly a third of the $38.4 million spent on state high court elections in 2009-10 came from non-candidate groups, the report said. Although the spending was slightly less than in the last non-presidential election cycle, nearly 40 percent of the funds in high court races came from just 10 groups. More alarmingly, these spenders were behind three out of four attack ads.
Pennsylvania was among the worst offenders. In the period studied, it had the dubious distinction of hosting the nation's second-most expensive high court election (after Michigan).
Republican Joan Orie Melvin, who won, and Democrat Jack Panella raised a combined $5.4 million for the November 2009 contest -- and just two groups (Philadelphia trial lawyers and the state GOP) provided more than half of all candidate fund-raising. To the shame of all, Justice Orie Melvin's sister, state Sen. Jane Orie, was subsequently charged with using state time and resources to help her campaign and her sister's. The senator now faces trial.
That race could be the poster child for what can go wrong when money infects judicial elections. In a merit selection system of the sort proposed but not adopted in Pennsylvania, the corrupting influence of money would not be an issue. Instead, politicians and public alike wear self-imposed blindfolds and pretend only to hear banging gavels, not cash hitting the scales of justice.
First Published November 1, 2011 12:00 am
