Ohio Right to Life opposes "merit selection"

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Moyer is the longest-serving current state chief justice in the United States. A Republican, Moyer has been Chief Justice since 1987. As a strong proponent of Stare decisis, he has worked well with both Conservatives and Liberals on the court through the years.

The last day of Moyer's current term is Dec. 31, 2010. Due to age restrictions within the Ohio Constitution, Moyer is unable to seek another term on the bench.

As his term comes to an end, Moyer is pushing for an overhaul of the system to which judges are elevated to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Moyer has long wanted to reduce the amount of fund raising and campaign donations needed for state Supreme Court elections. Over the last several years, he has pushed to set campaign finance regulations for the court.

This time he is seeking a structural change in which the governor and a review panel would select Supreme Court justices. Voters would decide a few years later whether to retain those justices.

His second choice, he said last week, would be a system of public financing of judicial election campaigns.

"The goal is to get the money out of the election process," he said.

This week, a "statewide, non-profit, non-sectarian educational organization" in Ohio has come out against Moyer's plan: Ohio Right to Life.

Ohio Right to Life on Monday, Dec. 14, came out strongly opposed to the idea of allowing the governor and a panel to pick justices for the Ohio Supreme Court, instead of allowing voters to elect them.

Ohio Right to Life Executive Director Mike Gonidakis and Legislative Counsel Mark Lally sent a two-page letter to Gov. Ted Strickland and Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Moyer outlining their opposition to “merit selection.”

Currently, there is not one Democrat among the seven judges on the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio Right to Life regularly endorses candidates who toe their anti-abortion party line.

Should the power to influence votes on judges be removed from the hands of powerful and rich special interests like Ohio Right to Life, a Democrat or two might actually end up on the Supreme Court. And we can't have that, now can we?

The idea in the proposal is for "merit selection". A panel of experts would recommend judges for the high court. The Governor would have no veto power and instead have to choose from that list. Alaska has a similar system in place.

Ohio Right to Life, however, actually opposes "merit selection". Because people on the Supreme Court certainly shouldn't be there due to merit. They should be there based on votes garnered by advertisements flooding the airwaves paid for by special interest groups. Like Ohio Right to Life.

Gonidakis and Lally, however, criticize this set up, citing a 2007 study that found only 56 of 6,306 judicial retention elections between 1964 and 2006 led to the judges not being retained. Direct elections provide an important power check on the judiciary system, they argue.

Except their argument isn't valid. According to the current proposal, voters would have a chance to vote judges out of office in a retention election. That takes care of the whole power check argument.

Supreme Court justices should be sitting on the bench because they have earned that responsibility. Not because they toe the line to powerful special interests who help get them elected to the highest court in the state.