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Sunday, October 28, 2007
Courts - "Judicial Races Now Rife With Politics"
That is the headline to a long story on page 1 of the Sunday Washington Post, reported by Robert Barnes. Some quotes:
Judicial elections are an almost uniquely American invention, with a patchwork of more than 16 selection systems spread across the country. In the 21 states that hold direct partisan and nonpartisan elections for the high court, some already have evolved from quiet, down-ballot contests to full-blown campaigns with consultants and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns. An Illinois Supreme Court contest in 2004 cost more than 18 of the 34 U.S. Senate contests that year, and candidates for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court last year raised a total of $8.2 million.The spending increases in large part reflect a decision by business groups to get involved in the contests. The National Association of Manufacturers announced in 2005 that it was establishing the American Justice Partnership to promote tort reform in the states, and the resulting battles between trial lawyers and business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce have led to some of the most expensive campaign battles.
A large majority of the money raised for races in 2005 and 2006 was spent in 10 states, and 44 percent of it came from business interests, the National Institute on Money in State Politics found. That was about twice as much as was given by lawyers, who had traditionally funded the campaigns.
The heightened spending and increasingly aggressive tone of the contests have alarmed nonpartisan groups and judges from around the country. Retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a longtime critic of judicial elections, has taken the lead in denouncing what she has called the "arms race" in campaign fundraising, and at a recent conference she presided over at Georgetown University Law Center, two of her like-minded former colleagues -- Justices Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter -- were in the audience.
"The reputation of the American judiciary is in the hands of the state courts," Breyer said. The rising demands on judges to raise money for their expensive campaigns -- plus the spending of outside groups -- could lead to the impression that the courthouse door "is open to some rather than the door is open to all.''
Thomas R. Phillips, a retired chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, said canons of conduct outside the courtroom make judges "uniquely unable to defend themselves from attacks" from groups angry about unpopular decisions that judges have made.
That issue has particular resonance in Pennsylvania, where a 2005 middle-of-the-night decision by the legislature to grant pay raises for all three branches of government continues to roil state politics.
The state Supreme Court ruled that lawmakers could rescind their own pay raises but not those for judges. The state constitution did not allow judicial salaries to be reduced, the court said, a prohibition meant to insulate judges from political retaliation. Electoral retaliation was another matter: One justice lost his seat when he faced voters later that year.
Now, a group called PACleanSweep is urging voters to reject 66 of the 67 sitting judges on the ballot for retention this year -- the only exception being one judge who returned her raise to the state treasury.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 28, 2007 05:49 PM
Posted to Courts in general