Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey has an important column on statenewsshot.com documenting how Tennessee’s so-called “merit” selection scheme has rigged the state’s judicial selection process in favor of powerful special interest groups and moved the entire process behind closed doors, out of public view.

Currently special interests control the appointment process. Although I have eight […]

Tennessee’s Judicial Selection Commission yesterday submitted a list of three candidates it deems worthy to fill retiring Chief Justice William Barker’s seat on the state Supreme Court. How did the commissioners reach their decision? Did they weigh each applicant’s judicial temperament? Did they examine each applicant’s judicial philosophy? Did they take into […]

The Cleveland Plain Dealer came out with a strong editorial supporting judicial elections and a campaign rule that would let judicial candidates list their party affiliations in campaign ads – a move the paper called “a big plus for free speech, common sense and Ohio voters.”

For many years, Ohio was mired in one of the worst legal liability climates in the nation—rated as low as 43rd among the states. Business and jobs fled the state. During much of this decade, while the rest of the United States enjoyed robust growth and low unemployment, Ohioans felt as if they […]

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Butler, Jr., remains Exhibit A in the drive to protect voters’ rights in state judicial elections.
After losing an election to the high court by a whopping two-to-one margin in 2000, Mr. Butler managed to finally secure a place for himself on the bench through an appointment by Gov. […]

A good roundup at domemagazine.com of the fallout from the discredited plot to rig Michigan’s political rules “to help Democrats.”  Among the collateral damage:

“It [the court packing/redistricting rigging scheme] has already led to talk of replacing Party Chair Mark Brewer, been responsible for knocking out their [Democrats’] top-choice candidate to challenge the incumbent Supreme Court chief justice, […]

Well, at least now we know. The Lansing State Journal reports today the Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm thinks “there are a lot of good ideas” in a proposed amendment to rewrite Michigan’s Constitution and she won’t oppose it.
This is the same ballot initiative that was denounced by the Detroit News as a raw […]

Readers of this space know I’ve done several posts about judicial selection in Tennessee. Now TN State Senator Dewayne Bunch has written a piece in the Cleveland, Tennessee Banner, in which he accurately describes the stakes not only for the quality of judicial decisions but for democracy itself. (Hat tip: Stacey Campfield)
In Tennessee, the Senate […]

Missouri’s supposedly non-partisan judicial selection system is controlled by a powerful “special-interest group” – Missouri’s trial bar – that is “unelected and unaccountable” write Thomas Walsh, a St. Louis attorney, and William Eckhardt, a Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.
While Missouri’s so-called “merit selection” system was intended to remove […]

Earlier this year, Rick Esenberg, a visiting assistant professor of law at Marquette University Law School and a member of the Federalist Society wrote an important report called “Everyone’s Business: Emerging Issues in the Wisconsin Supreme Court” that analyzed issues such as financing for public education, the definition of marriage under Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment […]