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This is a big judicial election year for Ohio, and trouble is brewing already. Like Pennsylvania, Ohio limits the political and fundraising activities of judicial candidates.  But the Columbus Dispatch reports that the candidates for  Chief Justice are trading allegations of unethical campaign conduct.

The Republican Party alleges that Chief Justice Eric Brown improperly solicited campaign contributions.  The Democratic Party alleges that Brown’s challenger Justice Maureen O’Connor, improperly endorsed another judicial candidate.  The Democratic Party also alleges that another sitting Justice, Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger, a Republican up for re-election, also violated the rule against endorsing other candidates.

Aren’t we getting tired of these stories?  These allegations, coupled with expensive elections funded by lawyers, law firms and organizations that frequently litigate in the state courts, makes one wonder why states continue to elect judges.  It seems that money problems and political entanglements are the  inevitable partners of judicial elections.

We need a system that gets judges out of the fundraising business and limits partisan political activity.  Merit Selection is such a system.

Joseph Russo, currently a Common Please Court judge in Ohio and candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court, is worried about the perceptions created when judicial candidates take large contributions from parties that later appear before them in court.  The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Russo has proposed a mandatory recusal process for judges and justices in cases involving campaign donors.

Under Russo’s proposal, a Supreme Court justice would be required to recuse in a case involving an entity that donated more than $10,000 in the aggregate to his or her campaigns during the past seven years.  Lower court judges would be subject to a similar process, though the dollar amounts triggering recusal would be lower.  Russo explained his reasoning in making the proposal:

‘The concern I have is that groups of people giving you money, a law firm or a corporation, and now they want to come before you in court to hear their case. . . .  My plan would immediately wipe out that perception about justices voting with the money.’

Russo’s opponent, incumbent incumbent Justice Maureen O’Connor,  opposes the measure, and notes that although other states have considered similar mandatory recusal programs, none has adopted one.  Read more about the campaign and the candidates on Gavel Grab.

O’Connor’s observation raises an interesting question.  If recusal is not the solution, maybe there’s a better way to deal with the problem of campaign contributions and the perceptions they create.  We think the answer is getting judges out of the fundraising business altogether by adopting a Merit Selection system for the appellate courts.