State leaders’ partisan wrangling, which already brought deadlock over a budget and a standoff over a nominee for police commissioner, now is rolling on another front: filling vacancies on appellate courts.
There is time to nip this in the bud. Senate Republicans and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf should do so to restore confidence in the judiciary, tainted by a pornographic email scandal that forced the departure of two Supreme Court justices.
The GOP senators are expressing concern about an 11-member commission Mr. Wolf formed to review prospective nominees for vacancies on the Commonwealth, Superior and Supreme courts. Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said he “can’t see any way we would confirm a list of judicial nominees coming over from the governor’s private, hand-picked commission.”
Senate Republicans complained that at least 10 commission members are Democrats. But they declined the governor’s invitation to recommend a person for the panel, saying confirmation requires a look at issues — such as length of vacancy, ambitions of the nominee and geographic balance — that may be beyond the scope of the commission’s work.
Also, Drew Crompton, counsel for the Senate Republicans, said the caucus was concerned about lending its imprimatur to a Democrat-stacked commission in which the Republican representative was “a voice crying out in the wilderness.”
Fair enough. But if the governor’s invitation stands, and it should, Senate Republicans should put a representative on the commission anyway. For balance, they should have more than one.
The Senate must confirm judicial nominees by a two-thirds vote, and Republicans control the chamber by a 30-to-19 margin, meaning Mr. Wolf needs Republican support to get any of his picks seated. Let the GOP weigh in early in the process, with the aim of averting the posturing and gridlock that occur later when one party makes a nomination that the other flatly opposes.
A bipartisan judicial commission might even pave the way for another big improvement — merit selection of all appellate judges.
First Published: April 11, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
