The New York Times and the Hugo Chavez Approach to Elections
September 30, 2010
Want proof that the “merit” selection crowd never meant for retention elections to allow voters to hold judges accountable? Take a look at the New York Times, which ran its second editorial in the past week castigating voters for even considering replacing justices. There’s a lot of hemming and hawing about “right-wing interests,” but the Times’ basic point is this: Retention elections are an appropriate tool for giving citizens a voice in judicial selection – so long as the voters always vote “yes.”
What “merit” selection proponents really want is for judges to be completely insulated from and unaccountable to the people they serve. Why? Because they support an activist judiciary that will enforce ultra-liberal rulings that elites love, but citizens would never support on their own. In Iowa, the Supreme Court invalidated a ban on same-sex marriages enacted by the elected legislature. In Illinois, the high court overturned the legislature’s attempt to fix the medical liability crisis by establishing reasonable limits on litigation awards. Elites can’t abide the democratic preferences of the people as expressed through their elected representatives, so they want to make judges sovereign.
For “merit” selection supporters, retention votes serve the same purpose as elections in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela: They create the appearance that the public endorses the ruling elite without the reality of actual accountability. Chavez got a wake-up call last week when the opposition captured a decent minority of seats in the National Assembly, despite having the rules rigged against them. Let’s hope that voters in Iowa, Illinois and other states fed up with an arrogant judiciary send a similar message in November.
MI Justice Robert Young: “Guardian of Justice”
September 28, 2010
Today the organization that I run, the American Justice Partnership, announced that Michigan Supreme Court Justice Robert Young is our first annual recipient of the “Guardian of Justice” award. Justice Young epitomizes the criteria we considered when making our selection: exhibits judicial restraint, strict follower of the rule of law, defender of the U.S. Constitution, faithful adherent to the intent of our nation’s Framers, model jurist.
Here’s the background on the nomination and the press release announcing the award.
Elites in a Panic over Iowa
September 27, 2010
The grassroots movement to oust three Iowa Supreme Court Justices has sent elites nationwide into full panic mode, as evidenced by this oped posing as a news story in the New York Times. The fear among elites is that conservative Iowans may actually hold three justices accountable for their actions. These citizens believe the justices overstepped their authority by ordering Iowa to sanction gay marriages.
Since “merit” selection was adopted in 1962, not one Iowa Supreme Court justice has ever been defeated in a retention election. This is as it should be, according to “merit” selection proponents, who are only comfortable with involving voters as long as they rubber stamp the judicial choices of lawyer-dominated commissions. Or as Drake University professor Rachel Caufield put it, “The system has worked well – until now.”
To blunt this citizen uprising, a gang of left-leaning special interest groups (the Iowa ACLU, Iowa Planned Parenthood, et. al.) have launched JusticenotPolitics. The organization’s snazzy new website claims its goal is to keep politics out of Iowa’s courts. Of course, the real purpose is to keep Iowa voters from exercising their constitutional right to get rid of judges when they believe the judges abuse their authority by legislating from the bench.
New Jersey Supreme Court Update: Voters Support Christie
September 24, 2010
Gary Marx over at National Review Online’s “Bench Memos” has an update on the battle New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is waging to rein in an activist Supreme Court. American Courthouse readers will remember that Christie took on the state’s legal establishment by refusing to reappoint Justice John Wallace. The state Senate has responded by refusing to hold hearings on Christie’s nominee to replace Wallace. Marx cites a new Federalist Society white paper and poll that shows a majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents all support a hearing for Christie’s nominee.
Marx also includes a link to a must-see video where Christie explains, in his trademark common sense style, how an activist Court is “taking authority away from the people you elect and [giving it] to people you don’t elect.…” Watch the video below.
A New Argument Against “Merit” Selection in Indiana
September 24, 2010
Jonathan Watson and Mia Reini have a great piece in today’s Indianapolis Star that makes an original argument against “merit” selection that I’m embarrassed to confess was unfamiliar to me.
According to Watson and Reini, national polling shows that in states with “merit” selection, voters actually believe their elected governor has the ability to independently select justices for the state Supreme Court, when in fact the governor is bound by the choices of an unelected commission.
If this is true, it means that most voters don’t even understand how “merit” selection really works or how “merit” selection strips away all public accountability for judicial selection and for judges themselves. In other words, many voters who may support “merit” selection are laboring under the false impression that that their elected governor has the final say over court appointments.
Watson and Reini made me realize how crucial it is for supporters of judicial accountability to clearly outline all the facts about “merit” selection. Once voters understand that “merit” selection effectively cuts them out of the picture, public support will evaporate.
CBN: Could Soros-funded Movement Stop Voters from Electing Judges?
September 23, 2010
Today, CBN airs a report on the national campaign to stop the democratic election of state judges. Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice is featured in the broadcast, as is yours truly.
You may view it here.
A Real Grassroots Uprising in Kansas
September 23, 2010
As a new report by the American Justice Partnership (which I run) rigorously demonstrates, the entire “merit” selection movement is part of a manufactured campaign to reshape the judiciary, financed by at least $45 million from hedge fund billionaire George Soros – complete with phony grassroots, pseudo-academic studies and slanted public opinion polls. Which is why it’s so refreshing to hear a real grassroots voice – like Donna Gillett of Leavenworth, Kansas, who launched a petition drive to get judicial elections on the ballot in the state’s first judicial district. Currently, a local “merit” panel, that has four of its nine members elected by lawyers, is in charge of picking judges and presenting them to the governor. 52 other counties in Kansas elect their judges.
For a dose of unvarnished common sense, read this recent interview with Gillett recently published in the Leavenworth Times. Here are a few highlights:
“[Merit selection] violates basic equality among citizens, the principle of ‘one person, one vote.’ The current system rests on elections open only to members of the bar, that is, lawyers….It elevates lawyers into a tiny elite and reduces the rest of us to an unacceptable status of second class citizens.”
“First, with popular elections a lawyer’s vote will no longer be worth more than any other citizen’s vote. Second, with popular elections, everything is out in the open. Any contribution of $50 or more is on public record at the courthouse. By contrast, our current system hides politics behind closed doors. It substitutes the politics of the bar for the politics of the citizenry.”
“The current system is firmly captured by a single powerful special interest group, the bar. If you’re naïve, then you’ll fall for the bar’s claim that they’re all about selecting the best people for judgeships. But if you’re realistic about human nature, then you understand that politics will always play a role in the selection of something as important as a judgeship. The only question is whether you want the politics out in the open where all citizens see what different groups are advocating, or whether you want to keep politics hidden in the backroom where only lawyers’ special interests count.”
No “Merit” for Nevada
September 22, 2010
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, now uber-lobbyist for “merit” selection, Sandra Day O’Connor took her dog and pony show to Nevada this week to convince Nevadans to give up their right to select state judges and hand the job over to a commission of legal elites. In addition to the usual blah, blah, blah, which I have exhaustively refuted here before, Justice O’Connor made the following observation:
“The Constitution has been a great document in our country, and it does not allow for elected judges.”
It seems pretty clear here that Justice O’Connor wants Nevadans to believe that “merit” selection somehow has the imprimatur of the Constitution’s Framers. Which means one of two things must be true: Either Justice O’Connor does not understand the Framers’ intent to hold all public officials, even judges, accountable to the people they serve (unlikely) … or she is deliberately misleading Nevadans in order to promote her desired political outcome (unfortunate).
Federal judges are nominated by a President who is accountable to the people and confirmed by Senators who are accountable to the people. Entire campaign speeches and advertising campaigns are dedicated to assuring voters that a candidate will nominate/confirm judges in sync with voters’ broad desires for judicial restraint or judicial activism, as the case may be. Judges appointed under “merit” selection are chosen by a commission that is accountable to no one.
As James Madison –who knew a thing or two about the Constitution – wrote in Federalist 39, “the persons administering” our government must “be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people….Even the judges [under the Constitution] be the choice, though a remote choice, of the people themselves….” Madison believed it was “essential” that our government officials be chosen by “the great body of the people, not from an inconsiderable proportion or favored class of it….”
Under Nevada’s current system of democratic elections, judges are chosen by the “great body of the people” – i.e. the voters. Under “merit” selection, judges are chosen by a “favored class” – i.e. a commission controlled by lawyers. If Justice O’Connor really believes that lawyers are better at choosing judges than ordinary citizens, she should just come right out and say so, instead of hiding behind our Constitution’s Framers.
NYT Letter To Editor: Merit Selection Drives Politics Underground
September 17, 2010
Today’s New York Times publishes a letter to the editor from Clifford Taylor, former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. Last week, Chief Justice Taylor participated in the Heritage Foundation launch event of Justice Hijacked, a new report just released by the organization I run, American Justice Partnership. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:
“…[T]he cleverly but inaccurately named merit selection system, merely drives the politics of judicial selection underground, outside of public scrutiny. Merit selection makes our courts less transparent and less accountable to the people they serve, while turning the power to pick judges over to legal special interest groups that have their own ideological leanings.
“There will always be politics involved in judicial selection, regardless of the method chosen. The real question is whether we want the debate to take place openly in the public square, or behind closed doors with false proclamations that merit commissions try to determine only which prospective judge is best qualified.”
Anti-Merit Selection Movement Growing at the Grassroots
September 16, 2010
Concern over the anti-democratic “merit” selection system appears to be growing at the grassroots – the real grassroots, not the phony grassroots manufactured by Justice at Stake and bought and paid for by George Soros’ $45 million+ campaign. A Minnesota branch of the Tea Party is using the American Justice Partnership’s recently released “Justice Hijacked” report (full disclosure: I run AJP) as a rallying cry to educate citizens about the threat from “merit” selection and the need to hold our judges accountable.