judgesonmerit.org

An article in the Traverse City Record-Eagle provides some more details about the newly formed Michigan Judicial Selection Task Force which will examine the need for judicial reform. The task force will be comprised of twenty-four distinguished Michigan citizens, including but not limited to lawyers. The task force is being organized in part by the chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who is disturbed by the politicization and expense of judicial campaigns. She expressed her discontent in a statement regarding recent campaigns:

Over the last decade, millions of dollars have been spent Michigan judicial candidates as being unfit for office. If you watch these ads, you get the impression we are choosing among scoundrels and incompetents.

This portrayal of the judges damages the court system as a whole, as does the role money plays in the system. Rich Robinson, who runs the Michigan Campaign Finance Network worries that people are losing confidence in the impartiality of the courts: “No trust in courts, no rule of law.” The task force hopes to make its report by the end of the year.

The race for the Michigan Supreme Court is heating up with the candidates having raised more than two million dollars already.  But, as a new report from the Michigan Campaign Finance Network explains, the election is costing much more than that: third party spending on television ads for the candidates is nearly two million dollars to date.  That’s about four million dollars so far to determine who’s going to get a job that is supposed to require fairness and impartiality and that the winner must not appear to favor those who helped him or her get there.

The third parties doing the spending: the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee.  Gavel Grab has good descriptions of and links to some of the ads running in this campaign.  Because their ads don’t directly mention voting, these third-party groups don’t have to report their spending or disclose the source of their finances.  Many see this is a growing problem in judicial elections:

‘The peril in this is that an individual or interest group could secretly spend a million dollars to market a candidate – a very important contribution, and then have that justice vote to select its case and rule on its case,’ said Rich Robinson of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. ‘That has considerable potential for conflict of interests and it certainly creates a troubling appearance.’

Pennsylvania faced similar issues last year when an out-of-state group ran “issue ads” marketing a candidate but not directly asking for votes.  The answer is to get money out of the judicial selection process by using a different way to pick judges that doesn’t rely on fundraising, campaigning and television ads.  We think the solution is Merit Selection for the appellate courts.