New Soros Agenda: Stacking the Courts

Is there no end to the number and types of left-wing political causes George Soros sinks his inexhaustible supply of money into?  Apparently not.

From funding a Super PAC to defeat Republican candidates, to spending $48 million on the media, to his plan for a one world government in Agenda 21, to his crusade to legalize drugs, Soros is on a mission to change the world, literally. This time, however, he's focused on the slightly more subtle agenda of electing non-federal judges. In other words, stacking the courts.

According to a FoxNews.com report Monday, the left-wing billionaire is now drawing ire from critics for trying to "stack the courts." In a review of Soros' Open Society Institute's tax returns from the last decade, the report uncovered more than $5 million in earmarks for "judicial selection."

One of Soros' priorities, the reports says, is to replace elections for judges with "selection-by-committee."

From the FoxNews.com report:

Most non-federal judges around the country are selected by voters in elections. But some states use a process called “merit selection” in which a committee – often made up of lawyers – appoints judges to the bench instead.

“Merit selection would end the money race and get judges out of the fundraising business,” Lynn Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts -- a group that has received money from Soros’ Open Society Institute -- told FoxNews.com.

Soros has spent several million dollars in the past decade in an attempt to get more states to scrap elections and adopt the merit method. Supporters say it would allow judges to focus on interpreting the law rather than on raising campaign funds and winning elections.

Naturally, opponents of Soros' far left agenda fear that if judges are picked by committee -- in this case a committee of lawyers -- left-wing judges would be a shoe-in for the position.  Colleen Pero, author of a report titled "Hijacking Justice," told FoxNews that election judges are "more independent" than judges appointed by committee, and explained that “merit selection” is by its very nature, "undemocratic:"

"It would be a handful lawyers who would select judges… with elections, the people actually have a say."

Pero's report also found Open Society Institute has given $45 million over the last decade to campaigns focused on restructuring the judiciary.  That figure, however, has been coined a "horrendously bogus distortion of numbers,” by "Justice at Stake" -- a group that, not coincidentally, has thus far received a reported $7 million from OSI.  Of the $7 million $50,000 was earmarked by OSI for "public education regarding merit selection." Likewise, another group called Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, received $90,000 from OSI in 2007 to "expand and grow a coalition in support of merit selection."

Not surprisingly, recipients of Soros-money are eager to defend the virtues of "merit selection" and express a desire for greater Soros involvement. Marks even went so far as to tell FoxNews elections actually "discourage" competent lawyers from seeking the bench because they aren't "good politicians."

“They don't put their name in for nominations because they think they don't have the political connections or access to dollars.”

If this report is any indication, however, those discouraged lawyers actually do have "political connection" and "access to dollars" after all.

(H/T: FoxNews.com)