judgesonmerit.org

The Birmingham News reports that the 2008 Alabama Supreme Court race was the most expensive high court election last year.  The two candidates and third party groups spent a combined total of $5.3 million:

Total candidate spending was nearly $4.3 million – $2.5 million by [Deborah Bell] Paseur and $1.8 million by [Greg] Shaw, according to state campaign disclosures, including final accountings filed this week. Third-party groups spent at least $1 million more.

During the 2007 Pennsylvania elections, four candidates running for two spots on the Supreme Court raised a total of $7,846,478.  This does not include third party spending.  And, an out of state group active in Alabama this year, the Virginia-based Center for Individual Freedom, spent more than one million dollars on ads supporting one candidate.

What does all this mean for Pennsylvania in 2009?  We are electing one Supreme Court justice and five more judges for the intermediate appellate courts.  Will we be setting yet new records in the fundraising and spending games? Time will tell, and we’ll keep you posted.

Adding to Alabama’s already expensive and nasty Supreme Court election, a Virginia-based organization has begun a series of television advertisements promoting its preferred judicial candidate, spending over $1 million to broadcast ads praising candidate Greg Shaw.  The Press-Register reports that, in response to the organization’s ads, candidate Deborah Bell Paseur’s campaign wants Shaw to demand that the third-party organization either disclose its contributors or stop broadcasting the advertisements.

‘The whole thing we’re interested in is finding out where this money is coming from,’ [Paseur's campaign manager Marion] Steinfels said. ‘Who is funding these ads?’

Factcheck.org takes a closer look at the Alabama race, carefully scrutinizing the role of the third-party organization.  Gavel Grab is also following this development.

Last year, the same Virginia-based organization broadcast similar ads leading up to the most recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court race, urging voters to “thank” one of the candidates.   Ultimately, because the ads never explicitly advocated for the election of a specific candidate, and were considered “issue ads”, the group was able to avoid disclosing its contributors.

Judicial selection and campaign money: a bad mix.