How Big is $207 Million?
August 30, 2010
In their recently released report, the Brennan Center and Justice at Stake pose as a couple “nonpartisan” good government groups that only want to get money and politics out of judicial selection. Neal Peirce falls for it hook, line and sinker in his Seattle Times column yesterday.
Pierce leads off with the report’s “blockbuster” finding that total spending on judicial elections more than doubled from $83 million in the 1990s to about $207 million from 200-2009 – an increase of 149 percent to be exact. Sounds ominous – but is this evidence of special interest money pouring into judicial races or are judicial races just following a larger trend toward more expensive elections?
A quick dig through the invaluable Open Secrets provides the answer.
Between 2000 and 2009, presidential candidates raised $3.16 billion in three elections – an increase of 192 percent compared to the previous three White House races. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush and Al Gore (plus a few dogs and cats) raised $529 million. Eight years later, total contributions to presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain, et. al., reached nearly $1.79 billion – a 230 percent increase. Strike One.
By 2008, the winner of the average House seat spent $1.37 million, compared to $650,000 a decade earlier in 1998. That’s a 111 percent increase – a big jump, but not as much as judicial elections, so we’ll call that a foul ball, but still Strike Two.
Let’s take a look at the “worst” state identified by Brennan/JAS – Alabama. Between 2000 and 2009, we’re told, 45 Supreme Court candidates raised just shy of $41 million in five election cycles. During that same time period, there were just two gubernatorial cycles – not quite a fair comparison, but let’s have a look anyway. Between 2000 and 2009, 28 candidates for governor raised $62.7 million – 53 percent more than Supreme Court candidates in three fewer election cycles. If you add in 2010, the difference is even starker: 54 Supreme Court candidates raised just $42.2 million, compared to 41 gubernatorial candidates who raised $83.1 million – 97 percent more. Strike Three.
It seems pretty clear from just a cursory glance at historical election spending figures that the 149 percent increase in spending on judicial elections is comfortably in line with spending on other elections and doesn’t come close to matching the explosion in presidential campaign spending.
Of course, Pierce never notes that both Justice at Stake and the Brennan Center receive millions of dollars in funding by one of the country’s most powerful special interest groups – the Open Society Institute, bankrolled by hedge fund billionaire George Soros and underwriter of countless ultra-liberal causes.
If Neal Peirce wants to argue that citizens should give up their right to participate in the choice of state judges and turn the entire job over to a “merit” selection panel (usually dominated by legal special interest groups and elite lawyers), then he should just come right out and say so. Or at least he ought to be honest with his readers about the agendas of the Soros-funded groups that are trying to manipulate voters.
“Merit” Selection Proponents Release New Report
August 16, 2010
This morning, National Public Radio reported on the latest study issued from the George Soros-backed “merit” selection movement. The report, authored by Justice At Stake, the Brennan Center, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and a Hofstra University law professor, purports to document an “explosion” in state judical campaign spending - some $200+ million all told.
And is all of this unseemly campaign spending actually influencing legal rulings and judicial behavior? Well, no actual evidence of that, just poll numbers and concerns about “appearance” problems.
In fact, when Lancaster Online examined 82 recent cases in Pennsylvania courts (h/t Judges On Merit) and compared the outcomes in those cases to judicial campaign contributions, the article’s subhead said it all: ”There’s no evidence [that] money influences decisions of state Supreme Court justices.” Rachel Caulfield of the American Judicature Society is quoted in the article saying,
“I haven’t seen any successful effort to link contributions to decision-making.”
Of course, the Justice At Stake crowd doesn’t let such pesky details detract from their efforts to end all democratic state judicial elections. Why wait for hard evidence before re-writing state constitutions and scrapping elections?
I’ll be reviewing the new study and posting analysis of this latest report in the weeks ahead.
Fighting to Overturn the Will of Wisconsin Voters
July 6, 2010
It’s been more than two years since Wisconsin voters ousted incumbent Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler in favor of Michael Gabelman, but judicial activists in Wisconsin refuse to give up the ghost. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Court is currently deadlocked 3-3 over allegations that Gabelman “lied” in a campaign ad that highlighted Butler’s liberal record. A three-judge Judicial Conduct Panel, along with three of Gableman’s colleagues on the Supreme Court, believes the charge should be dismissed. But what happens next is anyone’s guess.
Butler, AmericanCourthouse readers will remember, was appointed to the court in “open defiance” of the wishes of Wisconsin voters, who had already rejected him once by an overwhelming 2:1 margin. Following his appointment, Butler shifted the court sharply to the left, eviscerating Wisconsin’s medical liability reforms and inventing crackpot new theories to open Wisconsin employers to more abusive litigation.
The “merit” selection crowd is already using this ongoing dispute to gin up support for its goal of abolishing democratic judicial elections in Wisconsin.
Governor Kryptonite Takes on the Guardians of New Jersey’s Legal Establishment
May 12, 2010
The guardians of New Jersey’s legal establishment are up in arms over Governor Chris Christie’s “refusal” to reappoint Justice John E. Wallace, Jr., stirring a “furious controversy and charges the governor is jeopardizing judicial independence.” At least that’s how the gavel grabbers over at Justice at Stake describe it.
Exactly what has Governor Christie done to threaten the judiciary’s independence? Follow the state Constitution as near as I can tell. Read more
Legal Elites Try to Bully People of Missouri
April 16, 2010
Recently in Missouri we’ve seen the disturbing lengths to which powerful lawyers’ groups will go to preserve “merit” selection and maintain their chokehold on judicial appointments. A group called ShowMe Better Courts has launched a petition drive to restore the right of Missourians to select their judges in democratic elections. In response, a lawyer-funded group – run by former Missouri Supreme Court justice Chip Robertson – hired a goon squad to harass and intimidate citizens interested in signing the petition and getting the measure on the ballot. Read more
The National Journal Discovers the Earth is Round
April 12, 2010
The National Journal today reprinted a Justice at Stake press release — oops, I mean, had a very thoughtful piece — about how the Citizens United decision has unleashed a flood of corporate money on state judicial races. The gravamen of the piece is an oft-cited statistic from a still-forthcoming Justice at Stake report which suggests spending on state judicial campaigns more than doubled in the decade from 2000 to 2009 compared to the decade between 1990 and 1999.
As I’ve argued before – Big Deal.
The somewhat boring, less sensational truth is, spending on judicial races merely tracks the overall rise in contributions to other campaigns. In one four-year election cycle alone — never mind a decade — total spending by presidential candidates nearly doubled, from $717 million in 2004 to $1.3 billion in 2008. Barack Obama all by himself spent about $50 million more to win the presidency in 2008 than George W. Bush and John Kerry combined spent in 2004. In 2008, the average winner of a House seat spent $1.37 million — more than double the amount of the average winner a decade ago ($650,000 in 1998).
Actually, Citizens United will probably not alter corporate spending on campaigns all that dramatically. Corporations have always been able to donate. The only difference now is these donations can be used to expressly advocate for a particular candidate, rather than going right up to the edge with issue ads. Any increase in corporate political spending is likely to be dwarfed by the trial bar and trade unions – two groups whose future prosperity is so dependent on their ability to pull the levers of government power.
Judicial Selection: What Does it Mean to have Judges “Answerable to the Law”?
April 6, 2010
Adam Skaggs of the Brennan Center has an article in The New Republic bemoaning the influence of campaign cash in judicial races and predicting a post-Citizens United arms race of special interest spending.
Skaggs rehashes the usual poll numbers about public concern over the perception that campaign contributions influence judicial decisions. He fails to mention, however, that despite these concerns, 75% of Americans believe state Supreme Court justices should be elected, according to a 2008 poll by the American Justice Partnership Foundation (full disclosure: I’m president of the AJP). He also ignored a recent letter by William Weisenberg of the American Bar Association, who took sharp issue with the notion that widespread judicial elections mean that justice is “for sale” in the U.S., condemning this notion as “impugning the integrity of our court system and the thousands of men and women who daily don their robes and administer justice in a fair and impartial manner.”
Between 2000 and 2008 (the latest year for which data is available), the Brennan Center raked in more than $10 million from George Soros’ Open Society Institute, so it’s no surprise the group recycles the typical Justice at Stake boilerplate. But at the very end of the piece, Skaggs dips his toe into what I believe should become a really interesting debate – namely, exactly to whom are judges really accountable?
For those of us on the side of democratic judicial elections, the answer is quite easy: Judges, like every other public servant in America’s democracy, must ultimately be accountable to the people. Skaggs believes this is wrong:
“Unlike legislators and executive officials, who are expected to act in accordance with the interests of their constituents, judges don’t ‘represent’ anyone; they are answerable to the law, not to special interests that can cut the biggest campaign checks.”
Forget that last straw man – no thinking person believes judges should be accountable to the writers of the “biggest campaign checks.” The interesting thing here is the notion that judges “are answerable to the law.” A retired judge made the same point, which I blogged on last month, arguing that judges are “accountable to the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Both Skaggs and the judge seemed to believe this settles the question, but really it doesn’t. How exactly can “the law” hold judges accountable? If a judge exceeds her authority (as judges routinely do these days), how can “the law” force her to retreat to her proper role? If a judge makes a series of arbitrary, capricious decisions, how can “the law” replace that judge? How can “the law” decide whether a judge has fulfilled his oath?
Every top government official swears a duty to uphold “the law,” but someone has to determine whether they have fulfilled that responsibility. As I’ve written before, in a democracy, that someone is the voters. Saying judges should not be accountable to the people, but only to what their own conscience suggests “the law” demands is the same as saying they are accountable to no one.
USA Today Reports on Judicial Elections
March 31, 2010
USA Today has published a front page story about state judicial selection and the efforts to scrap elections in favor of “merit” boards, retention elections and so on. Yours truly is quoted in the article.
So, too, is Ciara Torres-Spelliscy of The Brennan Center of Justice who bemoans judicial campaign spending:
”It looks like justice is for sale.”
I emphasize “looks” to point out - once again - that the entire campaign to ban democratic judicial elections is based upon appearances, not actual evidence.
And, as with so many other reporters, USA Today’s Fredreka Schouten fell for the line that Justice at Stake and The Brennan Center are “non-partisan” judicial watchdogs. Readers of American Courthouse know that Justice at Stake and The Brennan Center are waging a full-bore, highly-coordinated, well-financed campaign to abolish democratic judicial elections across America and turn the judicial selection process over to a single special interest: lawyers. Standing behind the campaign with his checkbook in hand is billionaire hedge fund kingpin George Soros.
Watchdog groups are supposed to bring to light government actions that take place behind closed doors. Too bad these “watchdogs” are dedicated to ending public scrutiny and accountibility of one-third of our state governments by turning over the process to legal elites operating in secret.
Ten Years Worth of Spending on Judicial Campaigns = 4 Months Interest For George Soros
March 19, 2010
Justice at Stake – the political organization funded by hedge fund titan George Soros (net worth $13 billion) – will soon issue a study that says state judicial candidates raised $206 million over the past decade, which is more than double the $83 million raised in the 1990s. Sounds ominous – until you consider what has happened in other major elections. Here are a few tidbits, courtesy of the invaluable people at the Center for Responsive Politics and their website opensecrets.org:
- In 2008, Barack Obama raised more than $745 million – about $50 million more than George W. Bush and John Kerry raised in 2004 combined.
- The $3.16 billion spent on the three presidential elections in this decade (2000, 2004, 2008) is nearly triple the $1.08 billion spent on the three previous elections (1996, 1992, 1998) and nearly double the $1.6 billion spent on the last six presidential elections dating back to 1976.
- Barack Obama himself spent nearly as much to win the presidency in 2008 as all candidates did in the two presidential elections of the 1990s.
- In 2008, the average winner of a House seat spent $1.37 million – more than double the amount of the average winner a decade ago ($650,000 in 1998).
- The total amount Americans contributed to judicial candidates over the entire last decade represents about 4 months worth of interest on George Soros’ fortune. That’s not from opensecrets.org – I did the calculation myself; $13 billion at 4.59% interest (current 30-year T-bill rate).
Ramped up spending on judicial elections isn’t “a grave and growing challenge” to our courts, it’s merely mirroring the spending increases in other races. To put it in perspective, the $5.3 billion Americans contributed to all federal candidates in 2008 represents about one-third of what we’ve spent on bottled water.
Another Admission: “Merit” Selection Campaign is About Perception, Not Reality
March 8, 2010
Last week I did a little post on the ABA’s striking admission that the whole “merit” selection campaign is based purely on “perception” – not any real evidence that elected judges are “for sale” as most “merit” selection proponents claim. Well, it seems to have struck a nerve!
Our friends over at JudgesOnMerit – the group trying to end democratic judicial elections in Pennsylvania – were out this morning with an item entitled, “Why Perception Matters.” After admitting that elected judges are “certainly not” corrupt and are “by and large fully qualified to serve,” the blogger makes a run at defining the “perception” problem. There’s a lot of throat-clearing, but the main point seems to be this:
“The greatest problem, however, has to do not with the outcomes in specific cases, but with the effect judicial campaigning and fundraising have on the public’s perception of justice. We pay respect and honor to judges when we address them; we clothe them in grave black robes; and we have them sit elevated from the rest of us, looking down in judgment. A simple traffic court judge is addressed as ‘Your Honor,’ while even the office of the President of the United States commands no such title. All of this, so that decisions handed down by the courts are respected – and that respect is so critical because the judiciary as an institution has no means to enforce its edicts. Indeed, for a court to have any power at all, the public must believe that justice, and not some perversion of it, is being meted out in its marble hallways, and that judges are impartial arbiters of disputes and interpreters of law rather than mere political actors.”
The implication here is that the “perception” – which the blogger admits is false – justifies doing away with a right as fundamental as voting. But if “perception” alone disqualifies a judicial selection system, what about the “perception” associated with “merit” selection?
Under “merit” selection, judges are chosen not in open, transparent elections involving all the people, but by a tiny handful of elites (mostly lawyers) who deliberate behind closed doors. Isn’t there a “perception” that this turns the courts into closed, lawyers-only clubs?
And what about public accountability? In contested democratic elections, the people can decide if a judge is too beholden to this or that group and dismiss that judge from public service. Under the retention elections “merit” selection supporters promote, more than 99% of judges are re-elected. Doesn’t that create the “perception” that retention elections are just a fig leaf designed to insulate judges from the people they serve?
If all these groups – the ABA, JudgesOnMerit, Justice at Stake – believe the only problem with judicial elections is a false public perception, then why are they spending so much money to inflame this perception rather than debunking it?