(Editorial - Graphic Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Members of the state Senate sent a clear message to voters Wednesday: We don’t trust you to become informed enough on your own to elect judges; and we think so little of you that we believe you can be swayed solely by looking at the letter after a candidate’s name.

Back in 2015, state lawmakers (with a brand new Republican majority) did the right thing by making judicial elections nonpartisan in West Virginia. At the time, House Bill 2010 was understood by so many to be the ethical and responsible step to take that it passed the House of Delegates 90-9 and the Senate 33-1.

Today, Republicans are in a comfortable supermajority in Charleston. That’s why it boggles the mind that 22 state senators want to reverse the progress made in 2015 by passing Senate Bill 521, which would revert judicial elections to a partisan system.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Stuart was so bold as to proclaim “This is not a bill to politicize judicial elections. This is a bill because it’s so difficult for voters today. It’s so difficult for voters to know who to vote for. That identifier, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, in many people’s view will tell them something … Partisan politics? That’s the least of our concerns on this issue. It’s to try to help voters understand who they’re voting for.”

One wonders who Stuart thinks he is fooling. If it’s not about partisan politics, what, exactly, do he and the others who voted for the bill think the R or D indicates about a candidate?

State Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, voted to make judicial elections nonpartisan in 2015. He injected some much-needed common sense to the discussion this week, as he wondered why the state Senate would want to turn back from having removed partisan politics from judicial elections.

“(Judges) have to look at every case and decide it based upon the facts and the law,” Weld said. “They can’t say ‘any case that comes into my courtroom that’s a breach of contract case, I’m deciding for the plaintiff no matter what.’ They can’t do that. That … would completely destroy and erode the public’s confidence in the judicial system across the state. That’s why it’s different. That’s why it’s nonpartisan. That’s why we did it back in 2015.”

Surely members of the House of Delegates understand that. They’ll be taking a look at the bill next. Mountain State residents will be watching to see whether delegates behave as though they have a better grasp on how voters decide who is right for ANY office.