Editorials
GUEST EDITORIAL
USA Today
For Unpopular Rulings
Judges in Some States Face Reprisals
Most people go to court looking for a fair shake, but some special interest groups think they have a better idea: ensuring they’ll win in court by spending big money to elect judges who agree with them and to oust those who don’t.
Over the past decade, the groups’ efforts to buy justice have corroded scores of state high court races from Alabama to Illinois and beyond. This election season, new twists are emerging. Social conservatives are stepping up their attacks, and special interests of all sorts are working to influence “retention races, where judges stand for election, unopposed, and voters pick “yes” or “no.”
In Kansas, anti-abortion forces want to oust four of the state’s seven State Supreme Court justices. In Illinois, business interests are gunning for the chief justice, who ruled to eliminate a cap on malpractice damages.
Perhaps the most pernicious campaign is in Iowa, where last year the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a law limiting marriage to a man and woman violated the promise of equal protection under Iowa’s construction.
The 7-0 ruling put the Iowa judges at the center of the nation’s tumultuous battle over same-sex marriage. This fall, the Washington-based National Organization for Marriage and the political arm of the American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss., have joined with local groups to spend more than $300,000 to unseat three Iowa justices on the ballot next month.
This page supports civil unions over gay marriage, but that doesn’t mean we think judges who rule in favor of same-sex marriage should lose their jobs. If single-issue groups get their way, judges everywhere will start looking over their shoulders every time they vote in a controversial case or rule in a way that is unpopular. That will undermine impartial justice.
Over the past decade, special interests have chipped away at that ideal. State Supreme Court races have often degenerated into nasty battles with corporate interests on one side and trial lawyers on the other. Such groups have pushed spending on what once were low-profile elections from $83 million in the 1990’s to nearly $207 million in the past decade. Scurrilous attacks and nasty ad campaigns are now routine in judicial races. Judges themselves raise money from lawyers, doctors, union chiefs and business executives who then appear in their courts, an obvious conflict of interest.
A few methods exist to lessen special interest influence in judicial races. Iowa is one of about two dozen states that use “merit selection,” where judges are appointed then run for retention. North Carolina and New Mexico use public financing, which can help insulate judges from special interest money. But these latest campaigns challenge even those safeguards.
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, spoke recently in Iowa about the importance of the independence of judges and the need for “one safe place, the courtroom … where judges are not subject to outright retaliation for their judicial decisions.”
If judges commit malfeasance or display gross incompetence, they should be subject to removal, but if they are ousted simply because powerful groups disagree with a decision, no one will be able to enter a courtroom without wondering whether justice has been bought by the highest bidder or the special interest with the loudest voice. Everybody loses if the judiciary becomes perceived as just another politically partisan branch of government.
