Judiciary. Bought? Definitely Paid For.
First, a disclosure. I'm a lawyer.
That out of the way, I've always thought that it is a bad idea to elect judges. To me the concept of a judiciary presupposes impartiality with respect to the issues that will come before it. (The minute I let out that I am a lawyer, I start writing like one.) People running for a non-judicial governmental position, campaign by telling voters what they propose to do with respect to issues that they will face. Judges would be violating ethical rules if they announced ahead of time how they will rule on an issue in the future.
Bad executives, legislators, commissioners, etc. are remedied by defeat at the polls. Bad judges face appellate review and, if really bad, impeachment.
All that said, election of judges here in Georgia has led to what appears to be a blatant attempt to "buy" a seat on Georgia's Supreme Court.
Carol Hunstein is a current member of the Court. She has a long history as a lawyer and a judge at trial and appellate levels. In a recent poll of the Georgia Bar she was rated as "qualified" or "well qualified" by more than 95% of the respondants who said they had enough knowledge to express an opinion.
Her challenger is Mike Wiggins. He has never served as a judge. Though judicial races in Georgia are officially non-partisan, Mr. Wiggins is campaigning on his Republican credentials. In the poll mentioned above he was rated qualified or well qualified by 23% of the respondants who said they had enough knowledge to express an opinion.
I'll be voting for Hunstein; but, that is not the point of this post.
Hunstein has raised about $770,000.00, mostly from lawyers. Why so much? Wiggins has raised only about $170,000.00, mostly from corporations. Georgia has $5,000.00 limit on campaign contributions; but, it does not limit spending by people or organizations which are not controlled by the candidate. Wiggins is the uncontrolling beneficiary of at least $394,000.00 being spent by the "Safety & Prosperity Coalition" whose donors are insurance, medical and business groups and companies in favor of their version of "tort reform." Better yet, "American Justice Partnership", an affilliate of the National Association of Manufacturers, is spending $1.3 million on advertising for him. Who gave that money? We won't ever know because the law does not require the American Justice Partnership to disclose its donors.
Someone is going to buy a seat (whether or not they get what they are paying for) on the Georgia Supreme Court. My group, the lawyers? Or big corporations? The loser is sure to be the citizens of Georgia.
2 comments:
It is refreshing to see a lawyer expressing a sensible view on the finances of judicial elections. Although we will be voting for different candidates -- I have read about fifty of Justice Hunstein's opinions and am among the (apparent) minority that believes she is, in fact, an activist judge, but I won't argue the point with you here -- I am pleased to see a lawyer admit that the Bar is trying to buy a seat on the Court every bit as much as corporate interests. It seems to me that most lawyers in this state simply want to limit the debate about judicial elections to lawyers.
Sure, the corporate interests have an agenda. And so do the lawyers. I don't think lawyers intend to be disingenous when they say they don't have an agenda motivated by their own financial and political interests in supporting certain judicial candidates. I just think most of them live in a world removed from the mainstream and have a collective delusion that they somehow are above the fray.
Judges should not be selected by election. But if they are to be elected, I think it is at least better to have a number of competing special interests participating in the debate, rather than having just a single special interest (i.e., lawyers) control the debate to the exclusion of all others.
Thanks for the comment. On your last paragraph, I'd rather bar participation by all special interests; but, I think that approach has a small problem with the First Amendment. I don't think public finance works either. I guess we are left with what we have and will trust us, voters, to make a good choice.
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