The O'Jays famously sang, "Money, money, money, money. Some people got to have it. Hey, hey, hey. Some people really need it." This is certainly true of statewide judicial candidates in Pennsylvania.

To run a statewide campaign for the appellate courts, you need money. There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania and candidates try to reach most, if not all of them. This requires travel, television ads, radio spots, lawn signs and a good staff. All of these cost money, lots of money.

Where does the money come from? Judicial candidates hold fund-raisers and solicit donations. The big givers usually are those who frequently litigate in the state court system: lawyers, law firms, organized groups of lawyers or bar associations, unions and businesses. They give because they care about who runs the courts in which they pursue their interests. This makes sense.

The trouble is, these groups and individuals later appear before the judges their money helped to elect, often in opposition to regular folks who don't give to judicial campaigns. These regular folks then sit in courtrooms worried that they might lose because their opponents or their opponents' lawyers have contributed to the judge's election campaign. This is terrible, but when you elect judges, it's part of the package.

The abiding symbol of our courts is the statue of Justice blindfolded, signifying that judges should not be swayed by personal bias, popular opinion, political expediency or the identity of the parties appearing before them. A judge's personal relationships and political connections should have no influence on how cases are decided. Electing judges undermines this image. The public perceives a judge with eyes wide open, pockets bulging with campaign cash and knowledge of where the cash came from.

Even though the vast majority of judges are sincere when they explain that campaign contributions don't affect how they decide cases, the public understandably has trouble believing this. It looks like justice is for sale to the biggest campaign contributors.

The candidates currently running for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court are not helping to counter this image. As they fight about who received more money from which donors, they are confirming that they, too, are concerned about the influence of money in our courtrooms. It's not often that judicial candidates get this heated about this issue, but when they do, you can be sure the voters should be worried, too.

Republican Judge Joan Orie Melvin charges that Democratic Judge Jack Panella received more than $1 million from the Committee for a Better Tomorrow, the political action committee of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association. Judge Panella retorts that Judge Orie Melvin accepted $125,000 from the same PAC and has received large donations from Republican PACs as well.

One million dollars is a big pile of money, but $125,000 is nothing to sneeze at. Anyone coming to court opposing someone who contributed to this PAC might understandably be concerned about the impartiality of either Judge Panella or Judge Orie Melvin. It's not the size of the donation, it's the fact of the donation.

The candidates' dispute acknowledges that campaign money leads the public to believe justice is for sale. It confirms fears that campaign cash does indeed matter long after an election is over and a judge is sitting in a courtroom.

Enough is enough. It's time to get judges out of the fund-raising business and to put the blindfold back on. The way to achieve this is to stop electing appellate court judges.

The answer is merit selection -- a hybrid of the elective and appointive systems by which a bipartisan citizens commission would screen judicial candidates and select a few highly qualified ones. The governor would appoint a judge from the commission list, subject to Senate confirmation. Four years later the judges still would face voters, but in a retention election for a full 10-year term.

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