Not only did Republican lawmakers in Harrisburg kill any hope of passing redistricting reform in time for the 2020 census update, they are now supporting an effort to gerrymander the election of state judges, too.
Gerrymandering, like poison ivy encasing the trunk of a tree, prevents voters from tapping the heartwood of American democracy: Fair elections.
GOP leaders in the Legislature have set their sights on state judicial elections, hoping that fielding candidates from designated regions in the state (nudge, wink — from very red and very blue districts, purposefully) will produce more Republican judges.
For decades, statewide judgeships — state Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth courts — have been filled by statewide election. As the Pennsylvania Constitution provides.
Of late, however, Democrats won a majority of seats on the state Supreme Court, and that has scrunched up Republican knickers in the seats of legislative power.
If GOP-led gerrymandering can produce intractable Republican majorities in the House and Senate, the thinking goes, why not try the same approach with the three state appellate courts?
Last week the state Senate started the process of amending the state Constitution to do just that. The House adopted the same amendment last year along party lines. A few Republicans jumped the fence, joining Democrats in voting no.
Thankfully, the process of amending the Constitution requires a second round of legislative approvals before it goes to the voters in a referendum. But that could well happen, if legislative Republicans retain majority control. The governor cannot veto a proposed constitutional amendment.
There are plenty of good reasons not to slice and dice Pennsylvania into judicial districts. The first is, look at the near-total entrenchment of incumbents and the iron-fisted leadership by Republicans in the Legislature, thanks to gerrymandering.
Look at what that got us. (Among other things, a free-for-all fireworks law that terrorizes people and pets at this time of year. But we digress.)
And who, you might ask, would draw the lines for new judicial districts? Why, the same control-geeks who gave us the current lopsided legislative model.
Of course, the judiciary isn’t free of politics. That will always be the case, whether judges are elected or appointed through a “merit” process.
But judges, thankfully, can act and rule relatively free of partisan pressure. Once elected, they face only 10-year retention votes. That makes for an offering of independence and the ability to act as a check on the other branches of government.
Statewide judicial elections are working as intended. If nothing else, they level the playing field along voters’ wishes and enable elected judges to counter some of the worst power grabs by insulated partisan legislators.
The 2018 state Supreme Court redrawing of one of the nation’s most gerrymandered congressional maps was a classic example.
This proposal, under the guise of spreading out judges geographically, has nothing to do with diversity on the bench or fairness. It’s revenge served cold, Harrisburg-style.