Justice Ginsburg Backs End to Judicial Elections

According to Gavel Grab, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has plunged into an intense debate and endorsed an end to local and state elections of judges.

At a question-and-answer session Thursday before the National Association of Women Judges, Justice Ginsburg said she believes states should cease electing judges, according to a Washington Post article. “If there’s a reform I would make, it would be that,” she said.

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has become a champion of ending judicial elections and has traveled nationally to endorse the appointment system known as merit selection (see Gavel Grab). She has said partisan judicial elections and the fundraising that goes with them harm the ability of judges to be impartial.

Justices Ginsburg and O’Connor are friends. Justice Ginsburg approves of her former colleague’s campaign, according to the Associated Press,

At the gathering in Washington on Thursday, Justice Ginsburg did not give details about replacing judicial elections, according to the Post,  but spoke of concerns about fundraising and campaign promises.

The justice pointed out that she had dissented in 2002 when the high court ruled that states could not restrict the kinds of issues discussed by judicial candidates. In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White,  the court struck down as unconstitutional a state rule barring a judicial candidate from announcing his views “on disputed legal or political issues.”

According to the Post, Justice Ginsburg labeled  the majority’s ruling the “Gertrude Stein” decision: “An election is an election is an election.”

In 39 states, at least some appellate and major trial court judges faces the voters, either in traditional competitive elections or in up-or-down “retention” elections. Twenty-two states hold at least some competitive elections for Supreme Court justices. You can learn more about appointment and retention systems from Justice at Stake’s issues page about them.