Judicial Elections or Potato Chips?
October 30, 2008
As expected, our friends at Judges on Merit (or as I like to call them, Judges for No Accountability) are hyperventilating again about the impact of campaign contributions on judicial races – the answer to which, in their mind, is to get rid of elections altogether. It’s bad enough that Michigan Supreme Court candidates have raised $2 million, but third parties have also chipped in $2 million for a total of $4 million – about what Barack Obama spent on his 30 minute infomercial last night.
The blog quotes a spokesman from the Michigan Campaign Finance Network concerning the “peril” that contributions have “considerable potential for conflict of interests and it certainly creates a troubling appearance.” No evidence of any actual impropriety can be found, but so what? Better to strip people of their constitutional right to elect judges and turn the job over to a “merit” commission, just to be safe.
But wait a minute. Wouldn’t putting a single special interest group (lawyers) in control of the entire judicial selection process also create a “troubling appearance?” And is $4 million for a campaign really scandalous enough to justify abolishing elections? In his column today, George Will reports that the $5.3 billion spent on the presidential and congressional elections in the 2008 campaign cycle is a billion less than Americans will spend this year on potato chips.
Will Judges on Merit come out against democratic presidential and congressional elections next? Or just against potato chips?