Litigation

Editorial: Judicial Elections a ?Ruse??

By Peter Hardin

In the wake of debate in Wisconsin over public financing for state Supreme Court candidates, the Wisconsin State Journal is going further, calling for merit selection of judges–and denouncing the tradition of electing them as an outright “ruse.”

This editorial is one of those rare commentaries that goes well beyond conventional debate and seeks to examine an issue through a different lens. For that, and for the discomfiting questions it asks, it is deserving of attention.

“Wisconsin pretends it has a tradition of electing judges,” the editorial begins bluntly. And the “Impartial Justice” bill signed by Gov. Jim Doyle recently “won’t change that one bit,” it continues, launching into evidence supporting its argument:

• Because the governor appoints judges to fill vacancies, only one of eight new jurists to take the bench on the Dane County Circuit Court since 2007 was elected.
• Almost two-thirds of justices on the state Supreme Court in the past century reached it “thanks to a governor’s unilateral appointment.”

While most judges who stay at the circuit and Supreme Court levels eventually face the voters, they have established incumbency by then and don’t encounter too many rough contests, the editorial states. Similar situations prevail in many other states, where nominally elected judges often are first appointed by the governor to fill a midterm vacacany.

The editorial then rebuts critics who say merit selection gives too much power to a chief executive:

“Merit selection would take power away from the governor by allowing a selection panel–insulated from politics–to produce a list of the most experienced and respected judicial minds across the state. The governor would then pick from the list.”

After discussing other features of merit selection plans–whether for retention elections of judges, or oversight of a governor’s picks by a super-majority of the Senate–the editorial concludes, “No system for selecting judges is perfect. Yet merit selection best ensures an independent and impartial judiciary.” You can read more about merit selection at Justice at Stake’s resource page on the topic.

Full post as published by The Gavel on December 08, 2009 (boomark / email).