Noah Feldman, Columnist

Pennsylvania’s Awful Plan to Gerrymander Judgeships

Electing judges is a terrible idea.

February 17, 2021 at 4:00 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Can you imagine if judges were subject to the same partisan pressures as politicians?
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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Not content with a gerrymandered state legislatures and gerrymandered congressional districts, Pennsylvania Republicans are now moving to gerrymander judicial elections in the state — not only for local trial judges, but up to and including the state supreme court.

It’s a terrible prospect, especially in the light of the state’s legal fight over the 2020 presidential election. And it points to a deeper problem, one that plagues many state judiciaries: Electing judges is a terrible idea.