Putting a halt to judicial elections

Washington Post
Editorial
November 4, 2010

THE TELEVISION ads were vicious. One featured the silhouettes of three convicted murderers boasting about their crimes and slammed an Illinois candidate for siding with such criminals "over and over again." Another falsely accused a Michigan candidate of preventing citizens from holding polluters accountable. A third pilloried Iowa incumbents for "ignoring . . . traditional values" and "the will of voters."

Although couched in partisan terms, the ads targeted not politicians but judges. And the attacks occurred in uncontested retention elections, which were intended to insulate jurists from the most distasteful elements of a political campaign. If they ever succeeded in that goal, they no longer do.

On Tuesday, Iowa voters kicked out three state Supreme Court justices who joined in a unanimous opinion nullifying that state's ban on gay marriage. Judges up for retention votes in Michigan and Illinois also were subjected to nasty, expensive and misleading attack campaigns, although they managed to hang on to their seats. Even positive ads in a low-key election can erode the legitimacy of the bench when they suggest that a judge deserves reelection because he reached the "right" result on a given issue - and would probably deliver similar results in the future. In some jurisdictions, judicial candidates run under party affiliation - an offensively obvious breach of the idea that judges should be neutral and free from any political agenda.

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