Commonwealth Court Judge Ann Covey is the latest target in the continuing effort of the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA) to mislead voters into believing that they have greater insight into the qualifications and abilities of those aspiring to be Appellate Judges than any other special interest group. The PBA's Judicial Evaluation Commission (JEC) recently pronounced Judge Covey "Not Recommended" based upon their findings that Judge Covey engaged in "False and Misleading" campaign ads in her successful 2011 campaign for the Commonwealth Court.

The fact is that the PBA has a disdain for the democratic process called elections and has attempted for years to take the decision making for appellate judges out of the hands of the citizens in order to place it into the hands of the elites. They promote the so called "merit selection" system for the appointment of appellate judges which they sell to the public like snake oil arguing that this will result in a better judiciary. Unfortunately, their judgment has been so severely wrong, so many times, we should all hope that a merit selection system that mirrors PBA's process for judicial evaluations never happens. For example, PBA "Highly Recommended" former Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin who was suspended from the court and later convicted for public corruption. They also recommended Judge Joseph C. Waters for the Superior Court who is now serving a two years jail sentence for case fixing. Former Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, who recently resigned from the court in a porn email scandal, was also one of PBA's golden haired boys being deemed "Recommended" for an appellate court and later "Highly Recommended" for retention. On the other hand, our current Chief Justice, Thomas Saylor and judges like Judge Mary Jane Bowes and Judge David Wecht, who have honorably and competently served us on the Superior Court were deemed "Not Recommended" by PBA's crystal ball in their first attempts at statewide office. Thank God that the citizens of Pennsylvania knew better and elected Justice Saylor, Judge Bowes and Judge Wecht despite PBA's recommendations.

It is ironic that PBA would justify its unsupportable recommendation relative to Judge Covey on the basis of alleged "misleading" campaign ads when it is the PBA that continues to mislead by also touting that it somehow speaks for the majority of Pennsylvania lawyers. Although in 1998 PBA lobbied for and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court acquiesced in designating PBA as the organization most representative of Pennsylvania lawyers, the truth is that PBA does not speak for majority of Pennsylvania's lawyers. First, out of Pennsylvania's approximately 50,000 licensed attorneys, about 22,000 (44 percent) are not members of the PBA. Further, PBA to suggest that it can speak on behalf of a group that includes prosecutors, public defenders, plaintiff's trial lawyers, insurance defense lawyers, big firm lawyers, solo practitioners and more all of whom have different and diverse viewpoints, is just plain arrogant. It is for this reason that PBA's membership has significantly declined through the years. The PBA is run by executive officers, a Board of Governors and a House of Delegates that number about 40 lawyers out of 50,000. In a nut shell, a handful of elites sitting around in a closed, non-transparent meeting, shielded from public scrutiny, make pronouncements on political and social issues of the day and sell it to the public as representing the majority of Pennsylvania's lawyers.

Although PBA found Judge Covey's campaign to be "misleading," the citizens of Pennsylvania did not and elected her. I do not know Judge Covey, but by many accounts she has served the state well on the Commonwealth Court. It seems that the only "misleading" information supplied to the citizens of Pennsylvania is that PBA somehow has greater wisdom than all of the regular folks in determining the best to serve on our appellate courts.