judgesonmerit.org

An editorial in USA Today focuses on the threat special interest groups pose to judicial independence and asserts that these groups have “chipped away at impartial justice.” It looks at the increase in campaign expenditures during the past decade in comparison with expenditures in the 1990s and sees special interest groups: “ensuring they’ll win in court by spending big money to elect judges who agree with them and to oust those who don’t.” The editorial goes on to express concern over the content of judicial campaigns, as well as the role judges play in fundraising:

State Supreme Court races have often degenerated into nasty battles with corporate interests on one side and trial lawyers on the other.… Scurrilous attacks and nasty ad campaigns are now routine in judicial races. Judges themselves raise money from lawyers, doctors, union chiefs and business executives who then appear in their courts, an obvious conflict of interest.

We agree that judges do not belong in the fundraising business and special interest groups should not be allowed to exert influence over the courts. Merit selection is the best way to put an end to ugly judicial campaigns and ensure fair and impartial courts.

Over at CoffeeSpoons, blogger Matthew Jones in Indiana makes a good case for why electing judges is a bad idea.  Arguing in favor of maintaining Merit Selection for the Indiana Supreme Court, he observes:

My primary reason for opposing [judicial elections] is that it would require potential justices to wade into the muck and mire of the political arena.  They would have to organize extensive fundraising campaigns.  They would be forced to solicit massive campaign contributions, and to court the approval of special interest groups who would hope to gain from the election of favorable justices.  Rather than exercising only their independent legal judgment, they would have to be concerned about following the political mood of the day, and about pleasing their campaign supporters.  All of this strikes me as being inherently bad.

Sound familiar? This is how things work in states, like Pennsylvania, that elect their judges.  Commenting on how judicial elections look from the outside, Jones writes:

Our neighboring states that have systems for elected appellate judges have seen literally millions of dollars poured into the campaigns of candidates by special interest groups hoping to influence election outcomes.  That situation has to undermine the public’s confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Well, he’s right. As we reported yesterday, a USA Today poll revealed that 89% of those surveyed are concerned about the influence of campaign contributions on judges.  It’s time to get judges out of the fundraising business.

In a front-page article about the Supreme Court case of Caperton v. Massey, USA Today presents sobering statistics about the public’s perception of the effect of campaign contributions in judicial elections:

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll this month found 89% of those surveyed believe the influence of campaign contributions on judges’ rulings is a problem, and 52% deem it a “major” problem. More than 90% of the 1,027 adults surveyed said judges should be removed from a case if it involves an individual or group that contributed to the judge’s election campaign.

Recusal — when a judge removes him or herself from a case — is the big question the United States Supreme Court must tackle.  But we think these survey results raise a bigger question: why are we choosing judges through expensive elections that require such contributions in the first place.  There is a better way: Merit Selection.