High Stakes In Upcoming Judicial Elections
October 30, 2008
A Wall Street Journal editorial highlights the high stakes in next week’s judicial elections in Alabama, Michigan, and Ohio. In each state:
“The trial bar senses an opening in what may be a Democratic year and is pouring cash into the races to reverse what has become a nationwide legal reform tide.”
In addition to investing millions to turn back legal reform, the Journal also reports what readers of American Courthouse already know: the trial bar and their political allies on the left are also mounting a campaign to seize control of the courts by abolishing democratic judicial elections altogether.
“The idea is to expand “merit selection,” whereby judges are chosen by trial lawyer-dominated bar associations and legal groups instead of by voters….The expansion of merit selection is being pushed hard by the Brennan Center, Justice at Stake and other legal groups funded by wealthy liberals like George Soros.
“It’s no mystery that merit selection is the left’s method of choice. Some three-quarters of all merit selection committee slots are held by trial lawyers, according to data collected by the Federalist Society. What began as an effort to keep politics out of judicial selection has become a wholesale transfer of power from voters to the legal guild. Elections have their own problems, but at least they require the legal elite to be accountable to voters. Voters on Tuesday will have a chance to put the trial bar in its place.”