Judicial elections turn expensive, polarized, and nasty
Alabama Supreme Court Justice Bernard Harwood is no stranger to hard-fought elections. When he won a seat on the high court in 2000, he was one of the top fundraisers in the state with the most expensive judicial elections in the country. But, lately, Harwood, who is stepping down next year, sees a turn for the worse. By the end of this month's Republican primary, nearly $2.7 million had been spent on television ads alone in Alabama's Supreme Court races, with one justice attacked as a "Jimmy Carter-style liberal," and ominous ads insinuating that a candidate would legalize gay marriage. "It has a very demeaning effect on the profession of law as a whole and the judiciary in particular," says Harwood.
State court elections have traditionally been sleepy affairs, as decorum dictated that candidates remain above the fray of partisan politics. No more. Over the last several years, state judicial campaigns have become high-stakes political battles–expensive, polarized, and, at times, nasty. In 2004, judicial candidates raised a record $46.8 million, more than double the amount in 1994. And, with complaints about "activist judges" in the news and special-interest money flooding in, election observers warn 2006 could be more contentious than ever.
"If the trends stay true to what we've seen, we're going to see more TV ads, more money, and more interest groups involved," says Deborah Goldberg of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which tracks judicial campaigns. "Things are going to get much worse before they get better."
More than 80 state Supreme Court seats in 30 states are in play this year, though many are not contested. Candidates in Alabama's primary spent a combined $4.6 million, and the Washington, D.C.-based American Taxpayers Alliance separately spent almost $1 million in advertising, according to the Brennan Center. Candidates in Oregon, not usually a judicial battleground, are on track to spend more than $1 million, a first in state history. Nearly every judge in Kentucky is up for election. Tight, and expensive, races are also expected in Washington State, Ohio, Georgia, and Michigan. And activists in a few states are pushing to move from appointed judges to elections, which they say will assure accountability to voters.
The high cost of elections is a trend, critics warn, that could have lasting consequences. "When you have interest groups pouring millions and millions of dollars into elections, the impression people get is that judges can be bought and that justice can be bought," says Michael Greco, president of the American Bar Association. "The damage that does to the people's confidence in a fair judiciary is incalculable." More than 70 percent of people in a 2004 survey commissioned by Justice at Stake, which promotes campaign finance reform, thought campaign contributions had at least some influence on judges' decisions.
But proponents of elections, who argue that judges should be as accountable as the legislature, point to recent court decisions that they say are out of step with the beliefs of most voters. "Judges should be accountable to the voters, and the voters should know who they are and what their judicial philosophies are," says Bruce Hausknecht, a judicial analyst with Focus on the Family Action, the lobbying branch of Focus on the Family.
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