Litigation

?New Politics? Report Persists in Spotlight

By Peter Hardin

The first-ever analysis of judicial election spending over the past decade not only keeps getting headlines but also is providing a popular news media tool for looking at this year’s state contests in a broader context.

When the Associated Press, for example, recently reported on the political climate heating up in Michigan–especially over elections that will determine the majority on the state Supreme Court–its article quickly turned to the judicial elections report for background.

The Michigan Supreme Court race is getting heightened attention in part due to the recent abrupt resignation of one justice (see Gavel Grab) and also due to the influential role the court could take in redrawing state political boundaries.

Candidate-sponsored TV ads are expected to fill the airwaves in Supreme Court campaigning, as well as “issue” ads  from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and state political parties, the AP said.

It relied on the recent report by the Justice at Stake Campaign and two other groups to point out that the state chamber pumped almost $3 million on TV ads into state judicial races in the past decade, while the state Democratic and Republican parties each spent about $2.6 million.

Citing the report, the AP noted that Michigan ranked sixth nationally in candidate fundraising, at $12.8 million, and third  in money spent on TV ads for high court races. Co-authoring the report were the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Institute on Money in State Politics and Hofstra University law professor James Sample.

The report is entitled ?The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2000-2009: Decade of Change.? It has captured attention in both national news media  and regional publications.

A Fox News blog discussed the report in a post headlined, “Buying the Bench.” In Mother Jones, an article was entitled, “Permission to Encroach the Bench.” Syndicated columnist Neal Peirce examined the report in a column published in the Seattle Times, and he underscored the report’s conclusions:

“It’s tough to underestimate the peril to impartial American justice that’s been highlighted in a new report on the big-time campaign money flowing into elections for justices on state Supreme Courts.”

The Progress Illinois website mined the data to provide context for an article about the current battle over the state Supreme Court. The Public News Service headlined its article, “WI Justice: For Sale to the Highest Bidder?” And a Des Moines Register column cited the data to ask, “Do Iowans really want to elect judges?”

?The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2000-2009: Decade of Change,? with a foreword from retired Justice Sandra Day O?Connor, showed that high court candidates raised $206.9 million in 2000-2009, more than double the $83.3 million raised in the 1990s. The first national study of judicial spending in the 2000-2009 decade was written by Justice at Stake, the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Institute on Money in State Politics

To learn more, see Justice at Stake?s online resource page, or see these earlier Gavel Grab posts.

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 01, 2010 (boomark / email).