A proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution that would have replaced the state’s partisan judicial elections with a merit-selection system for appellate judges was killed in the House Judiciary Committee in June. The committee’s action came only days after the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation warned members that the federation would weigh their votes on the issue when making endorsements in the next election. The proposal failed in large part because of opposition from anti-abortion activists.

Under the proposal, a commission would produce a list of nominees, and the governor, with the state Senate’s consent, would appoint the judges on the state’s appellate courts. The approach, known as merit selection, originated in Missouri in 1940.

Pennsylvania chose Supreme Court justices and judges of the two intermediate appellate courts in partisan elections for 10-year terms. Candidates for those courts could not file in more than one political party. After a term, a judge faced a retention election in which voters answered yes or no, and a judge who received more yes votes than no votes stayed on the bench.

A representative of the Pro-Life Federation told House members that “a yes vote [for merit selection] will be considered a pro-abortion vote.” The federation gave money in support of judicial candidates the federation believed would oppose abortion rights. Anti-abortion and conservative religious groups had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pennsylvania judicial candidates in recent years.

Coverage of the defeat also named trial lawyers among the opponents. A June 16 story by Chris Mondics on Philly.com, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, ran under the headline “Trial Lawyers, Anti-Abortion Group Stymie Judicial-Selection Bill.”

Tyrec Grooms reported this story for Gavel Grab on June 18, 2012, when the site was a project of Justice at Stake. The original post is preserved by the Internet Archive. This account of the same events was written from the public record.

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