Why is House Bill 38 being fast-tracked?

After their unsuccessful attempts to overturn the election results (but only the election results they didn’t like), the Republican members of the Pennsylvania General assembly are quietly attempting yet another end-sweep around the consensus of Pennsylvania voters.

House Bill 38 sets up a partisan system of electing state judges and is being fast-tracked, with no public input, so that it can be put on the ballot this spring in a low-turnout primary election.

The bill would change the Pennsylvania Constitution to require that Supreme Court, Superior Court, and Commonwealth Court judges be elected district-by-district instead of state-wide.

Currently, we can elect the best judges, no matter what part of the state they’re from. Even if I live in Kennett Square, I can vote for a judge from Erie or Clarion to serve on a state-wide court. No more, if HB 38 becomes law. It would set up seven districts and the voters in each district could only vote for a judge from that district.

And who would draw those districts? The General Assembly, the same folks who brought us horribly gerrymandered districts, including the notorious T” Congressional District, which was the worst gerrymandered district in the entire United States (no mean feat!) until it was changed as the result of a lawsuit. Gerrymandering the districts for the election of judges would allow the Republicans to get rid of those pesky independent judges who didn’t overturn votes in favor of baseless accusations of election fraud.

And in yet another proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution(!!), another bill (HB 55) would limit the emergency powers of the governor and give them to a partisan bureaucracy, again, the General Assembly. I don’t think emergencies and bureaucracies go well together. Would you like the state’s COVID response to be handled by the legislature?

Apparently no dissent is to be tolerated, whether it’s from the voters or the governor, and the separation of powers are to be undermined in every way possible. Making changes to the constitution is a serious matter and should not be undertaken for partisan reasons.

Meg Woodlief Kennett Square