Litigation

JAS Hails ?National Momentum? for Court-Election Reforms

By Peter Hardin

The Justice at Stake Campaign saluted as a “big victory for West Virginia citizens” the signing into law of a public financing plan for state Supreme Court elections in the Mountain State.

“It also shows there is real national momentum for reform in how we elect judges,” JAS Executive Director Bert Brandenburg said in a press release after Gov. Joe Manchin (photo at right) had signed the legislation.

“In recent months, six states have approved or proposed measures that would insulate courts of law from special-interest money,” Brandenburg said.

The new law creates a pilot program for state Supreme Court elections in 2012, and it makes West Virginia the fourth state nationally to publicly finance Supreme Court elections. The legislation was introduced after an independent commission established by Manchin made recommendations for judicial reform.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler, the bill’s chief advocate, had characterized judicial elections as creating a “dialing for dollars” atmosphere that has the scent of tainted justice, according to a Beckley Register-Herald article.

Kessler also had pointed to the results of a poll of West Virginia voters that showed strong bipartisan support for public financing. The poll was released by the Justice at Stake Campaign and the Committee for Economic Development.

Other states using public financing are North Carolina (enacted in 2002); New Mexico (2007); and Wisconsin (2009). Elsewhere, Michigan’s Supreme Court adopted new rules to make it easier to disqualify justices from hearing cases involving major campaign backers, and Nevada’s legislature will let voters decided this fall whether to switch to a merit selection system for appointing judges.

“Each state is adopting its own strategy, but the common thread is this: Americans believe our courts should be accountable to the law, not interest-group pressure,” Brandenburg said.

When its public financing plan is in place, West Virginia stands to cast aside a troubled legacy that placed it at the center of a national debate over protecting public trust in the judiciary. It is the birthplace of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case about the impact of runaway special-interest spending on impartial justice, called Caperton v. Massey.

In 2004, a coal company executive spent $3 million in 2004 to help elect a state Supreme Court justice, and the coal company went on to benefit from two critical votes by the justice to overturn a massive jury award against it.

In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the the justice, who had refused to step down in the case, was required to disqualify himself, and it pointed out the ?serious, objective risk of actual bias? arising from such a large campaign expenditure.

The potential turnaround in West Virginia prompted a laudatory New York Times editorial  headlined, “From Scandal to Example in West Virginia.” You can learn more about the public financing bill in Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 25, 2010 (boomark / email).