judgesonmerit.org

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has looked into the campaign finance reports that candidates for the 2008 Wisconsin supreme court race have filed. A staggering $5.96 million was spent in the race — a record for Wisconsin. The lion’s share of that money was spent by special-interest groups: $4.8 million.

And what the special-interest groups did with that money was problematic: nasty attack ads and phony issue ads that distracted from the real issues in the election.

The previous Wisconsin supreme court spending record was $5.8 million, with $3.1 million spent by special interests. Every election, the spending levels ratchet up. More and more, voters are likely to perceive that a seat on the state supreme court is for sale.

Is the same increase in campaign spending in store for Pennsylvania’s next judicial elections? In 2007, there were two open seats on Pennsylvania’s supreme court, and the candidates raised close to $8 million. That doesn’t even include third-party independent spending, which became an issue when an out-of-state organization poured money into advertising on behalf on one candidate in the final weeks of the campaign.

Public perception of courts’ integrity and impartiality is important, and it suffers when so much money is spent on partisan elections. Merit Selection avoids this problem by taking money out of the equation, and its time has come both in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

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