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Wisconsin Judiciary: Part IV, Who gets to spend money left in the war chests?

By Steve Lombardi

Justice for Sale: Part III, Judicial campaign ads, war chests along with soft and hard money.

Judicial campaign ads in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Washington State and Alabama are shown on this YouTube video clip. The only thing a practicing lawyer can say is they demean the judicial system entirely.

Stuart Banner, Stanford Law Review, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Jan., 1988), pp. 449-490 (article consists of 42 pages) , Published by: Stanford Law Review

some see it does and others don't see it at all. Common sense tells us otherwise.

- Justice for Sale? Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decision Making

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzFbpXCVgfY

Do labels make a difference? Liberal, conservative, extremists, agenda, family values, erodes and other words conjuring up distrust, incompetence and political leanings are used in judicial contests. Are they demeaning to the judiciary? Certainly. Do these ads add to the public's trust of the judicial system? Absolutely not. Each superlative conjures up an image leaving us with less and less trust in the independence of judges.

What does U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor say about the election of Judges, politicizing of the judiciary and how that influences the judicial process? I don't think she's happy about it. As she says activist judges are the ones who simply get out of bed in the morning and go to the courthouse to work. That's about as active as they should be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEntVPddsMw

Justice O’Connor says no other country in the world elects judges.

Stephen Bryer, U.S. Supreme Court Justice on the notion of “activist judges”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pup2teJtJAA

Remember the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice election campaign between Michael Gableman and his opponent Lewis Butler? Well that race ended up costing over $5 million, just a few dollars shy of reaching $6 million. Is this really a wise use of resources or an indication of America's demise? One writer laments:

“Judicial races now cost an average of $243,910. “In 2006, five of the 10 states with private financing set spending records, including Alabama, which raised $13.4 million in five state Supreme Court races, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Outside groups have added to these amounts, spending 2½ times more on television ads in the 2004 and 2006 cycles than in the previous two. And increasingly, this money is coming from the business community, which represented 44 percent of all campaign money—twice the percentage of donations from lawyers, according to the Brennan Center.”

See The $5 Million Judge: Wisconsin Race Sets Record in Money and Meanness.

Is there a correlation between the receipt of campaign contributions and the receipt of favorabel decisions? I some instances a correlation has been shown to exist.

Damon M. Cann Utah State University - Department of Political Science

August 10, 2006 Stephen J. Choi
New York University - School of Law
G. Mitu Gulati
Duke University - School of Law
Eric A. Posner
University of Chicago - Law School; University of Chicago Press
August 2007
U of Chicago Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 357
2nd Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies Paper

Abstract: While federal judges are selected by appointment, many state judges are selected through competitive elections. As state judicial campaigns become progressively more costly and political, judicial candidates have turned increasingly to lawyers and law firms as a source of campaign funds. Given that contributing lawyers frequently appear in court, it is natural to wonder whether judges are more likely to rule in favor of attorneys who offered financial support to their campaign. Looking at cases from the Supreme Court of Georgia's 2003 term, I show that campaign contributions are indeed correlated with judges' decisions. Further, using a two-stage probit least squares estimator to address questions of causality, I show that the campaign contributions directly affect judicial decision making.

There is no question a correlation exists; otherwise big business and the powerful law firms wouldn’t be making contributions. The question remains why with all the corruption we are seeing in corporate boardrooms, we continue to allow the judiciary to be elected.

Now if I could only find an answer to the question of who gets to keep the campaign dollars when judges no longer serve.

Additonal References:

Professionals or Politicians: The Uncertain Empirical Case for an Elected Rather Than Appointed Judiciary

Abstract: Although federal judges are appointed with life tenure, most state judges are elected for short terms. Conventional wisdom holds that appointed judges are superior to elected judges because appointed judges are less vulnerable to political pressure. However, there is little empirical evidence for this view. Using a dataset of state high court opinions, we construct objective measures for three aspects of judicial performance: effort, skill and independence. The measures permit a test of the relationship between performance and the four primary methods of state high court judge selection: partisan election, non-partisan election, merit plan, and appointment. The empirical results do not show appointed judges performing at a higher level than their elected counterparts. Appointed judges write higher quality opinions than elected judges do, but elected judges write many more opinions, and the evidence suggests that the large quantity difference makes up for the small quality difference. In addition, elected judges do not appear less independent than appointed judges. The results suggest that elected judges are more focused on providing service to the voters (that is, they behave like politicians), whereas appointed judges are more focused on their long-term legacy as creators of precedent (that is, they behave like professionals).

ThrowTheRascalsOut.org, A Wisconsin Grass Roots Movement, for a major shakeup in Madison!

The Wall Street Journal, What Happens to Leftover Campaign Funds? November 4, 2008.

The Wisconsin Campaign Finance Glossary includes such terms as “war chest”, “soft money”, “hard money” and “laundering”. Sounds like talk straight from the mouths of hookers working for the mob.

The campaign to Choose Judges on Merit.

Record $6 Million Spent on Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

Published by Michele at 12:47 pm.

Joining the Merit Selection Bandwagon in Wisconsin

Published by Shira at 9:00 am under Judges, Merit Selection, Opinion

In its year-end story round-up, The Daily Page in Wisconsin discusses the Wisconsin State Journal’s call for Merit Selection, calling it the year’s “Best Crusade:”

[The issue is] reform of the state’s system of selecting Supreme Court justices. Instead of letting governors pick most of them, interspersed with ugly contests bankrolled by special interests, the paper is calling for merit selection, where applicants are culled by a nonpartisan panel. Don’t think it’s a good idea? Just watch the high court election we’re likely to have next year.

As we’ve written here and here, Wisconsin judicial elections have been getting more expensive, partisan and divisive. The expectations are that this will only intensify. We hope the Journal’s “Crusade” will continue to attract positive attention and gain more adherents.

Disqualifying Elected Judges from Cases Involving Campaign Contributors

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Lombardi

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on February 19, 2009 (boomark / email).