Litigation

Report: Cash, Incumbency Help Decide Judicial Elections

By Peter Hardin

A new report by a national watchdog group highlights the critical importance of money and incumbency in determining judicial elections, and the high-spending role of lawyers and lobbyists.

The report from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a partner of Justice at Stake, is entitled “Diversity in State Judicial Campaigns, 2007-2008″ and reports trends from examining high court and appellate court candidates in 35 states. Among its central findings:

• Money and incumbency were the two greatest factors determining winners and losers.
• Women and minorities belonging to ethnic or racial groups were under-represented on judicial election ballots; just 38 percent, or 151 or 399 candidates, were women or minority group members.
• Judicial candidates in partisan contests, where the ballot lists a candidate’s name with a party affiliation, drew 71 percent of the money raised by high court candidates overall and 82 percent of the money raised by appellate candidates overall.
• Of $62 million raised by judicial candidates, a total of 48 percent came from lawyers, lobbyists, and their firms (more than $18 million); and from the candidates’ own pockets ($11.6 million.)

You can learn more about the importance of diversity on the bench from Justice at Stake’s issues page on the topic, and about the ethics and integrity issues raised by special-interest spending on judicial elections from another JAS page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 13, 2010 (boomark / email).