Of my four-page California ballot, the part I absolutely loathe is the one that covers judicial races. On Thursday,
kamala published her first Daily Kos diary discussing the need for a liberal voting guide that would cover down-ballot races, propositions, and judicial elections by state.
There are different ways that states select their judges. Some states elect judges on a partisan basis, which makes it a little easier to pick a judge when you know nothing else about him. Other states, like California, in an attempt to keep politics out of the state judiciary, use a non-partisan ballot, although I don't see how you can possibly keep politics out of an election; instead, you just make it harder for casual voters to make informed choices. Other states allow the governor, legislature, or a commission to appoint their judges. And in many states, appointed judges have to face the electorate at the end of their terms.
Living in a state that elects its judges in a non-partisan manner, how do I know that the judge with an interesting name will not want to legalize school vouchers or send an elementary school student to jail for being tardy? The answer is that I don't.
I don't know because, as liberals, it seems we have once again been beaten by the conservatives who plan their victories long before we even know that there is a battle looming. In many of the non-partisan states, conservatives have studied the judicial candidates and determined which ones will best serve their interests.
And they are spreading the word to the religious home schoolers and the right to-tell-me-how-to-live-my-life'rs via websites all over the internet.
Jump below the fold for more.
We tend to hear about the big federal court cases, but most justice is handed out by state courts. According to Mother Jones, "More than 100 million cases are filed annually (versus about 400,000 in federal courts)." That is a lot of action. The cases can be criminal or civil, and the outcomes can force a business to change its behavior or send someone to jail. I don't want to vote for a judge that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent millions of dollars getting elected.
As explained in Is Your Judge for Sale? ("Thanks to Karl Rove and Citizens United, judicial elections have been overtaken by secretive interest groups, nasty ads, and the constant hustle for campaign cash"), Mother Jones Andy Kroll writes:
...the US Chamber of Commerce, under the leadership of an aggressive new president named Tom Donohue, picked up on Rove's strategy. Pledging to "play hardball" against "frivolous" lawsuits, the Chamber spent $10 million on judicial races in 2000 alone. It pumped $4.4 million into Ohio's Supreme Court election—the largest expenditure from a single source on a court race in US history. In the following years, the Chamber injected tens of millions into races in Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, and Wisconsin. Corporate America had grasped the potential to install friendly judges who could crack down on costly class actions and neutralize the efforts of consumer advocates. "We're clearly engaged in hand-to-hand combat," as Donohue put it, "and we've got to step it up if we're going to survive."
They are doing it with dark money that pays for sleazy ads. Much of it has been coordinated and funded by the Judicial Fairness Initiative of the Republican State Leadership Committee.
So, I got out the shovel and started digging through the internet, looking for some advice for those of us who live in some of the states where the judicial races are nominally non-partisan. (In some states you will be voting Yes or No on a judge, depending upon the laws in your state.) Here's what I dug up:
Arizona
In Arizona, I found two different voting guides for judicial elections, one was from the delightful The Arizona Conservative, which told conservatives to ...
Vote NO on these judges. They are either Democrats or were appointed by leftist Governor Napolitano. As such, they are less likely to uphold life and freedom:
If they don't like them, chances are we will.
There is another group, the liberal Arizona Advocacy Network, that provides a pdf of their handout:
This handout includes which judges will be on the ballot, their rating from the Commission on Judicial Performance Review and which Governor appointed them.
California
In California there are two websites run by conservatives, Robyn Nordell's Conservative California Election Website and the Judge Voter Guide, produced by Craig Huey, who absolutely hates the judicial activism that comes from liberal judges.
Go there. Find out which judges they support and then vote for the other guy or gal.
Florida
Florida Family Policy Council provides a 2014 Judicial Voter Guide. The council has sent a questionnaire to the judicial candidates and provides the answers that the candidates give.
As an example, Dennis D. Bailey, when asked which U.S. Supreme Court justice he most admired, responded, "Antonin Scalia." A liberal would probably want to vote for his opponent.
Pro Publica, writing about money in judicial races, reported that:
During the last cycle, justices in Florida faced an expensive challenge from the state Republican Party and Americans for Prosperity, a group supported by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch. In that race, all three justices were ultimately retained, despite ads blasting them for a decision to block a proposition aimed at blunting Obamacare. Even some Republicans called the anti-retention campaign a threat to judicial independence.
Also on the Florida ballot this year is
Amendment 3:
This cycle Florida voters will weigh in on Amendment 3, which would allow an outgoing governor to pick successors to current justices, giving the governor a lot of power to shape the court on the way out the door. (Current law allows the incoming governor to appoint justices.)
Kansas
For the first time, an attempt is being made to politicize the judicial elections in Kansas. The attempt is unprecedented in the state, which has never needed regulations regarding campaign financing of state Supreme Court justices because they have never been considered as "state officers."
With just three weeks left before the upcoming midterm elections, a group called "Kansans for Justice" surfaced with the aim of persuading voters to oust two of their state Supreme Court justices.
"Your Kansas Supreme Court justices are using their political beliefs to rule against sound court cases," the group's website said. "On November 4th, vote No and remove Kansas Supreme Court Justices Eric Rosen and Lee Johnson from the bench." ...
This particular retention vote, however, could have distinctly political consequences. The two justices targeted by Kansans for Justice were appointed by a Democrat, former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. If they're voted out, their replacements could be chosen from a pool submitted to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who's embroiled in a contentious fight for re-election himself. Brownback has made eliminating "liberal" justices one of his central campaign promises. Depending on the election results, the court's balance could shift from 4-3 in favor of Democratic appointees to 5-2 in favor of Republican appointees.
Kentucky
Kentucky may be witnessing its last truly non-partisan judicial election—a federal judge has just ruled that the Kentucky law banning judicial candidates from using party affiliation is a violation of their First Amendment rights.
Searching for a voting guide in Kentucky, I came across the Fairness Campaign, a progressive website whose Vision and Mission Statements includes:
The Fairness Campaign is a broad-based community effort dedicated to equal rights. Its primary goal is comprehensive civil rights legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Fairness Campaign accomplishes its goals through public education and advocacy, political activity, community building and reciprocal alliances with others in the social justice community.
Their recommendations are
here.
Minnesota
Minnesota Lawyer does a good job of providing information on all of the judges running and endorses Justice David Lillehaug and Justice Wilhelmina Wright.
Montana
MTMofo wrote about the campaign mailer sent out in Montana that identified the judicial nominees by political party. Also included in Suspicious MT Supreme Court voting mailer generates complaints is information about one of the candidates. Also check out Judgepedia.org's Montana Supreme Court page.
North Carolina
North Carolina has taken away state campaign financing of judicial elections this year, opening the floodgates for dark money. Around $1.3 million was spent on the primaries.
This year there are four seats up for election—two Democrats and two Republicans. Democratic Judge Robin Hudson has already been targeted during the primaries by the Republican State Leadership Committee, funded by the usual suspects—the Koch brothers,, Walmart, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others.
Moyers & Company has this:
North Carolina provides a case study of how politicizing the courts can play out in the real world. The state, one of the most polarized in the country, has become ground zero for big-money campaigns to influence the judiciary. And a study released last month by John Echeverria, a professor at Vermont Law School, found that the North Carolina Supreme Court hasn’t sided with environmental interests over business even once in the past 15 years. ...
In North Carolina, the Justice for All NC PAC is mostly funded by the Republican State Leadership Committee in Washington, DC — a group that supports conservative candidates for state legislatures. National Journal’s James Oliphant reports that the Republican State Leadership Committee launched a new project this year called the Judicial Fairness Initiative, which is “directed toward electing to the bench conservatives who can safeguard GOP legislative victories.” The line separating the legislative and judicial branches is blurring.
See
Judgepedia and
Equality North Carolina, a liberal site that has an endorsed slate on their website.
Wisconsin
You will have to go to Wisconsin Family Action website in order to find out who the conservatives are supporting for Wisconsin's judicial elections. Once there, you will have to provide a WI address (so they can determine your district) and they will then tell you who to vote for. Do the opposite.
It is likely that the Wisconsin courts may not be far behind their brethren in North Carolina as regards environmental protection. From the study released last month by John Echeverria, a professor at Vermont Law School who is mentioned in the Moyers & Company quote above:
In addition, as partisan control of the Court swung back and forth over this period, the outcomes of the environmental cases before the Court also changed, with environmental advocates almost always winning while the Democrats were in control and almost always losing while the Republicans were in control. In keeping with the “purple” character of the Wisconsin judiciary, recent elections to the Wisconsin Supreme Court have been very partisan and very expensive. Since 2007, there have been millions of dollars in independent expenditures supporting and attacking candidates for seats on the Court. In 2007, Joanne Kloppenburg, a long-time environmental attorney with the Attorney General’s Office, failed in a bid to unseat Justice David Prosser by a scant 7000 votes; Prosser benefited from a $2.2 million independent expenditure campaign, with half of this amount provided by the Koch- backed Americans for Prosperity. The ideology of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and its environmental jurisprudence, will apparently continue to be contested at the ballot box for the foreseeable future.
Find out who the candidates are that are running in your state's judicial elections and vote for the right ones. It is easy to google your state's name and the words "judicial elections 2014." If you can't find a liberal voting guide, use the conservative one and reverse the votes. We cannot afford to surrender our state courts to the Kochs and Karl Rove without making a fight of it.
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