Litigation

Election 2010: Long-Quiet States Heat Up

By Peter Hardin

The Justice at Stake Campaign and a partner, the Brennan Center for Justice, have unveiled a new website featuring data on national TV spending, candidate fundraising and key political players in 2010 state high-court elections, which may be unprecedented in their character.

State Supreme Court retention (up-or-down) elections in four states have captured the spotlight. Such one-candidate elections typically have been low-profile in the past and have all but escaped a tidal wave of special-interest spending that engulfed competitive high-court races in the past decade.

But this year, the two nonpartisan reform groups said in a press release, spending on retention elections is likely to spike, possibly exceeding the national total on this kind of contest for the 2000-2009 decade, with conservative groups mounting challenges in four states that have worked  to insulate judges from electoral pressures.

The hot retention races are in Iowa, where social conservatives are seeking to oust three justices who participated in a unanimous ruling that legalized same-sex marriage; Colorado, where a group called “Clear the Bench” is angry about court rulings it says will raise taxes; Illinois, where Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride faces opposition from business groups over a ruling overturning medical malpractice limits; and Kansas, where social conservatives want to deny re-election to Justice Carol A. Beier over her views on abortion.

“Over the last ten years, arms-race spending, mudslinging attack ads, and special interest domination have become the norm in contested, multi-candidate judicial elections,” said Adam Skaggs, counsel at the Brennan Center. “To date, single candidate retention elections have avoided this type of campaigning. But all signs suggest that in 2010, deep-pocketed special interest groups are setting their signs on previously sedate retention elections.”

State high-court candidates raised $206.9 million in 2000-2009, more than twice the $83.3 million raised in the prior decade. Only $2.2 million, or 1 percent of the total, was raised in retention elections, according to a report co-authored by JAS and Brennan Center and entitled, “The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2000-2009: Decade of Change.”

This fall, 33 states will have some form of judicial elections. Notable states with competitive elections include Alabama, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas, all of which ranked among the six most costly states for supreme court elections in the last decade.

“The big story of 2010 is that new states are being introduced to big-money court elections, but unfortunately we don’t see any change in states that already are battlegrounds,” said Charles Hall, JAS communications director. “Special interests on both the left and right continue to see state court elections as an investment, hoping to tilt the scales of justice in their favor.”

National conservative groups have spent more than $121,000 on TV ads in Iowa, through Sept. 21, seeking ouster of the three incumbents. In Colorado, the state bar association has aired ads. In Illinois, Justice Kilbride began airing an autobiographical ad this week.

Links to videos and storyboards of all TV ads aired in judicial elections this fall can be found at the Brennan Center’s “Buying Time 2010″ website, by clicking here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 23, 2010 (boomark / email).