judgesonmerit.org

We often write about the Money Problem — the problem caused by a judicial election system that essentially requires candidates to raise campaign funds from parties, lawyers and law firms that are likely to appear before the winning judges in the future.  Here’s an interesting twist on the problem brought to us from Alabama.  According to the  Gadsden Times, two sitting Supreme Court justices are making financial contributions to the campaigns of current candidates for the Supreme Court.

The very fact of the donations should raise eyebrows –do we really want sitting judges getting involved in electing their colleagues on the bench? But that’s not what’s newsworthy in Alabama.  There, the story made news because two Republican justices were making contributions to Democratic candidates.

The money flowing to judicial campaigns is already a river of trouble.  Do we really need to complicate things by having  judges giving money in hopes of influencing who will be sitting with them on the bench?

There is a solution: get judges out of the fundraising business altogether by replacing appellate court elections with Merit Selection.

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