Litigation

West Virginia to Consider Public Finance System

By Lissette Villarruel

With national attention on judicial reforms, the West Virginia Legislature is considering a public finance system for judicial elections, an article by LegalNewsline.com reports.

The Senate Judiciary Committee may hear a bill to publicly fund judicial candidates. Sponsored by committee chair Jeff Kessler (left), the legislation would counter the recent influx of money and special interest participation in judicial campaigns.

Judicial elections, and especially special interest spending, have fallen under public scrutiny with Caperton v. Massey, in which a West Virginia justice refused to remove himself from a case involving the coal company CEO who spent $3 million to elect him. The U.S. Supreme Court must now decide whether the justice adhered to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment Due Process Clause in choosing to hear the case.

Along with the six legislative sponsors for the bill, Justice Menis Ketchum advocated a public finance system similar to that of North Carolina, in which the state funds high-level appellate candidates and outside fundraising is limited: ??If we do not find a way to remove money from the judicial selection process we run the risk of having a judiciary dominated by very wealthy candidates or candidates that have the appearance of being funded by one side or the other.??

The influence of campaign contributions on judges? decisions has been a state-level concern since the 1990s, according to an article in The Journal. The article also cites a Justice at Stake/Harris Interactive poll in which 73% of those surveyed doubted the neutrality of a judge in a case where one party had contributed $1 million. This public dissatisfaction is expressed by Charles Hall from Justice at Stake: ??Courts are just different?They?re supposed to be fair and neutral umpires.??

The article reports that Governor Joe Manchin has responded to these concerns by announcing that he will create a commission to explore judicial reforms. However, for state Representative Jonathan Miller, the answer lies in merit selection, though such a system overhaul is unlikely to occur soon.

For more information on judicial reforms, you can visit this Justice at Stake site. Details on Caperton v. Massey can be found at the Justice at Stake Caperton resource site.

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 13, 2009 (boomark / email).