Supreme Court race turns nasty
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The battle for state Supreme Court that will be decided in Tuesday’s election may not have shed much light on the candidates, but it’s been a boost for economic recovery in Pennsylvania. Democratic Jack Panella and Republican Joan Orie Melvin raised more than $2.5 million through mid-October, mostly from the deep pockets of trial lawyers, labor unions, political parties and others with more than a passing interest in matters before the state’s highest court.
Both candidates are career judges with impressive resumes covering years of service on the county and state benches. Currently judges on the Superior Court, they both also carry a state bar panel’s top rating of “highly recommended” for elevation to the state’s high court.
But critics of Pennsylvania’s tradition of electing appellate judges say the role of special interest money and the shrill tone of the campaign underscore the need for changing to an appointed system.
“It’s time to get judges out of the fundraising business and put the blindfolds back on” justice, said Lynn Marks, executive director of Philadelphia-based advocacy group Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts.
The Times-Tribune newspaper in Scranton routinely withholds its endorsement from candidates for the appellate bench because it advocates appointing those jurists based on merit.
“The real message they should be selling doesn’t sell – ‘I will follow the law,”‘ said Pat McKenna, an associate editor.
In recent weeks, both sides in the Supreme Court race have put up dueling negative TV ads that make misleading, if not outright inaccurate, claims about the opposition.
One ad sponsored by the state Republican Party suggested that Panella, as a member of the state Judicial Conduct Board, should have done more to stop a pair of Luzerne County judges who allegedly took millions of dollars in kickbacks to place juveniles in privately owned detention centers.
“Panella didn’t protect our kids,” a male narrator says ominously, “and he hasn’t earned our vote.”
In fact, federal prosecutors told The Associated Press that the board acted properly in promptly forwarding an anonymous complaint about one of the judges that the board received in 2006, more than two years before criminal charges were filed.
Panella’s campaign has run ads that sought to paint Melvin as an enemy of women’s rights.
“Melvin wants to take away our rights, including the right to choose,” a female voice warns, invoking a phrase that is a rallying cry for the abortion rights forces.
Melvin is recommended by the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, which opposes abortion rights.
But in his successful 2003 campaign for Superior Court and as recently as the May primary, so was Panella.
Charlene Bashore, the federation’s political director, said its support for Panella in the Democratic primary was based largely on his responses to the group’s questionnaire.
Oddly enough, in the general election campaign, Panella is endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania political action committee, an abortion rights advocate. Sari Stevens, the group’s state director, said his responses to its questionnaire “made us very comfortable” with his position on the issue.
Asked which side of the abortion question Panella is on, campaign spokesman Dan Fee insisted that the judge gives the same answer on any questionnaire – that he will follow the law as a judge and that it’s inappropriate for him to express his personal view as a judge or a judicial candidate.
“Jack’s positions and his answers have always been the same,” Fee said.
Marks said the candidates’ sparring over fundraising at a recent debate that her organization co-sponsored reflected their mutual concern over the influence of special interest money in the judiciary.
As for advertising, she said, “it’s difficult to make an ad that will educate voters enough to make an informed decision” about judicial candidates.
Melvin, who has been outraised more than 2-1 by Panella, said she would like to see the Supreme Court set limits on how much campaign cash appellate court candidates may accept from any donor – and enforce them by barring those who accept more from participating in cases involving those donors.
It is “obviously a work in progress and something that needs discussion,” she said.
Peter Jackson is the Capitol correspondent for The Associated Press in Harrisburg. He can be reached at pjackson@ap.org.