Mar 26 2008
What’s the Big Deal About Contributions to Judicial Campaigns?
One of the big reasons we need Merit Selection is to get money and fundraising out of the process of picking appellate judges. How much do these elections cost? Last year four candidates running for two open seats on the Pa. Supreme Court raised $7.85 million. That’s a record in Pennsylvania. And, much of that money came from lawyers, law firms, and organizations — like unions and business organizations — that often have cases in the appellate courts.
This is a problem because in Pennsylvania (and other states) judges don’t have to step aside (”recuse” in legal terms) in cases where the parties or lawyers gave money to help them get elected. That means that a judge can make the decision in a case that involves a lawyer or party who gave money, even a lot of money, to his or her election campaign.
This is a key cause of the increasingly widespread public belief that campaign contributions affect decisions made in the courtroom. This is not a problem unique to Pennsylvania. Illinois, Wisconsin, and West Virginia have all recently been in the news because of cases involving big donors to Supreme Court justices’ campaigns.
We think the solution is to get judges out of the fundraising business. The best way to do this is Merit Selection.
Tags: elections, Illinois, Merit Selection, money, other states, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin
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[…] West Virginia Supreme Court elections continue to make the news. Earlier we wrote about justices forced to recuse (or not) from cases involving some big campaign donors. Now, at least one justice is talking about […]