The effort to deny retention to three state Supreme Court justices is deliberately misleading, as I’ll explain shortly.

But I confess it does stir some fond memories for me, and I’ll share them briefly, because I think they help validate my credentials regarding the upcoming election.

Since retention elections began for our state appellate court judges in 1968, only one judge has been ousted — part of a wonderful, but very short-lived, voter revolt against our lawless state Legislature and the courts that consistently enabled its illegal behavior.

In the 2005 early morning payjacking, as it became known, our legislators gave themselves instant pay raises of at least 16%, on top of a 5% cost of living increase they got at the beginning of the year. Even though the state Constitution says it’s illegal for legislators to raise their own salaries — requiring any increases to apply to the next session — they circumvented that by calling the raises “unvouchered expenses.”

As I wrote at the time in one of my many rants, this is like a bank robber calling his loot an “unvouchered withdrawal.”

This wasn’t the first time legislators had pulled this maneuver, but for a variety of reasons, this one sparked an uprising of angry Pennsylvanians. It resulted in the ouster of 17 incumbent legislators, including some top leaders, and Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro, who had the misfortune of having his retention on the 2005 ballot. Given the way that court had enabled legislators’ bad behavior, including previous illegal raises, it was richly deserved.

Unfortunately, the outrage faded, and voters went back to being apathetic cattle who support almost every incumbent with no regard to their individual performance and the Legislature’s disregard for good government.

What I’m saying is, I like seeing incumbents ousted. Including judges, if they deserve it.

But the three judges in this retention election — Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht, all Democrats — don’t deserve it.

They come recommended for retention by the nonpartisan Bar Association. They helped protect us from our state’s traditional over-the-top gerrymandering, resulting in much fairer election district maps. Their decisions have made it easier to vote and to have our votes counted. Unlike our U.S. Supreme Court, they have shown the independence we require to properly balance the legislative and judicial branches of our government. They remain a bulwark against assaults on women’s health care and other ultra-MAGA priorities that have plagued other states.

In short, their performance warrants retention. Nonetheless, for many of the reasons I listed above, they have been targeted by well-heeled Republicans who want them replaced by people who are OK with the kind of blatant gerrymandering we’re seeing being done around the country at Donald Trump’s behest, who want to make it harder to vote, who preferred the lapdog approach of the 2005 court and who dream of regaining full control of our state government.

So a lot of outside money has gone into convincing Pennsylvania voters that this isn’t really about competence or ethics.

It’s about term limits.

This is a novel approach, but I guess it has the potential to appeal to voters of all political persuasions who favor term limits and don’t realize these aren’t jobs for life like, say, our corrupt U.S. Supreme Court, where term limits would be most welcome. Retention elections every 10 years aside — and boy, would I love to see Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito face a retention election this year — our state already requires state appellate court judges to step down when they turn 75.

Even more imaginative were the yard signs I’ve seen proclaiming No Kings No Retention, an attempt to win over MAGA opponents by co-opting an anti-MAGA slogan. A lot of Pennsylvanians spent last Saturday loudly proclaiming their opposition to authoritarian government. Pretending these judges are another example is worth the try, I suppose.

As a term limit guy myself, though, I have to tell you that this retention opposition has nothing to do with term limits or kings. It has to do with punishing and replacing obstacles to a government that is accountable only to party bosses and maybe Donald Trump.

We don’t need those kinds of judges. So vote Yes.

Bad writing contest entries

Just a quick reminder for those who missed my last column that I am now accepting entries for this year’s Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest. Email me your attempts at writing the first sentence of the worst possible novel.

If you’re unfamiliar with this, by all means do a web search of me and Bulwer-Lytton for more detail. Better yet, visit the great bulwer-lytton.com website for the real international Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, from whom I stole the idea, and read winning entries there.

Partly because the real contest shut its doors this year after decades of excellence, my local imitation is drawing interest from outside the area, including a couple of dozen entries already from the Southwest, and what I expect to be a bombardment from last year’s champion in Los Angeles.

All are welcome, but I’m hoping our local wordsmiths will step up to show they take a back seat to no one when it comes to terrible writing.

This is a contributed opinion column. Bill White can be reached at whitebil1974@gmail.com. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author, and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. Do you have a perspective to share? Learn more about how we handle guest opinion submissions at themorningcall.com/opinions.