Pssst…Wanna Buy a Judge?

Filed in National by on April 5, 2010

Ever since the Supreme Court issued its January ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), lifting the ban on corporate spending on elections, most of the attention has been directed towards how this would effect things like presidential and congressional races. And while there now will certainly be the opportunity for big corporations to openly campaign for candidates friendly to their points of view, the executive and legislative branches are not the only ones who run elections. Much less talked about is how Citizens United has opened up vast swaths of the judicial system to corporate purchase.

In an article at The New Republic,Adam Skaggs delves into this issue and explains how state judicial elections have changed over the past ten years from quite little affairs to huge contests flush with corporate players. Skaggs writes, “As an Ohio AFL-CIO official put it, ‘We figured out a long time ago that it’s easier to elect seven judges than to elect one hundred and thirty-two legislators.'” I’m a little surprised that I haven’t seen more outcry over this issue, but I guess there’s only so many things people can get worked up about in a given stretch. This issue, I think, differs from the fear that corporations can buy legislators, mostly because people expect politicians to have agendas and represent a particular segment of society. Judges, on the other hand, are supposed to be impartial, and guided only by the law — or maybe I’m hopelessly naive (that was rhetorical, btw).

And in case you think judges are not swayed by the origin of their funding:

The obvious question here is whether special-interest spending sways judges once they’re presiding over cases. Three in every four Americans believe the answer is yes, according to a 2001 poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. More importantly, even judges believe there is a connection: Of over 2,000 state judges polled in a 2002 Greenberg Quinlan survey, nearly half said campaign contributions influence judges’ decision-making.

The TNR article cites several instances that make it hard not to think that judicial decisions were bought outright by interested companies. Obviously, Citizens United is not creating the situation whereby big companies can buy favorable court decisions, it’s only making it easier. In my mind, this all brings up two important points. First, it seems obvious that there should be provisions in place to ensure that elected judges are made to step aside from any cases involving campaign contributors. Secondly, as I’ve asked many times before, why are judges elected in the first place? As a voter, I have no way to appraise the competency of judges. I don’t think judges should be elected at all. To me, it makes more sense to have them appointed internally via an internal merit-based system. At the minimum, if judges have to be elected, there should be public financing systems adopted, as four states have already done. The alternative, as Skaggs writes, is, “If, in the Citizens United era, states don’t adopt public financing and strong disclosure and disqualification rules, the judiciary’s credibility will dissolve—and quickly.”

Tags:

About the Author ()

A lifelong Delawarean who has left-of-center views -- and he's not afraid to use them.

Comments (4)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Will things have to get worse before the issue is addressed? Amazingly, the judges who profited by sending kids to private jails didn’t do much to change things. How bad does it have to get before there is some passion for reform?

  2. cassandra m says:

    Electing judges just seems to be such an anachronism — especially since most places have fairly detailed requirements and credentials that judges must hit before they are even qualified. They need to be professionals, not professional politicians. And how much work do they miss fundraising and campaigning? Getting them out of the politician business seems to be the progress towards reform here.

  3. MJ says:

    Electing judges gave us the likes of Roy Moore in Alabama and Brent Benjamin in WV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Benjamin). I prefer what most states operate under – The Missouri Plan. In this, judges at all levels (except municipal courts) are appointed by the Governor after a screening committee reviews applicants. Each judge serves a interim 4 year term before going up for a retention election. If retained, they serve a full term (anywhere from 6-10 years). In Colorado, judges are not allowed to campaign for retention unless there is an organized effort to recall them.

  4. Montana says:

    I love that they asked for “Public Defenders” (and they thought they could bring down our government), undercover FBI agent, sweet. The simpleton Tea baggers keep missing the point. These are the same whiners that were crying when the McCain/Bailin ticket lost. Now they are crying again because their yelling and screaming (because they are haters not debaters or as others have dubbed them screamers not dreamers) did not stop the health care debate or the bill from passing. They think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something they are not the only ones that are armed and not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey than the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. Do not cry when regular people openly laugh at your group when they see on TV that your leaders are Sarah Bailin, Orly Taitz, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and your own turn coat Glenn Beck from the LDS. They do more to discredit you group on TV (powerful) than any of comments on the blog sphere. Yee Haw!