Women and People of Color on State Supreme Courts

Laila Robbins and Alicia Bannon of the progressive Brennan Center find:

"people of color have consistently made up a higher proportion of appointed, as compared with elected, first-time supreme court justices. Incumbent justices of color have also is proportionately
been challenged and lost elections once on the bench, as compared with incumbent white justices.
By contrast, by most measures, women have fared similarly under both elective and appointive methods"

Their full paper is available free of charge

Progressive Arguments on Judicial Selection

The progressive Brennan Center has published Choosing State Judges: A Plan for Reform by
Alicia Bannon. It:

recommend[s] that states do away with state supreme court elections completely. Instead, justices should be appointed through a publicly accountable process conducted by an independent nominating commission. Furthermore, to genuinely preserve judicial independence, all justices should serve a single, lengthy term. No matter the mechanism by which they reach the bench, be it an election or an appointment by the governor or legislature, justices should be freed from wondering if their rulings will affect their job security. 

 I support this "single, lengthy term" view of judicial retention, but think much is lost in the Brennan Center's vague "A judge’s job is to apply the law fairly and protect our rights." This phrase can mislead people into believing that judges merely apply law made by someone else (constitution, statute) rather than make law, which judges have been doing for centuries in making the common law and in interpreting vague provisions of constitutions and statutes. The problem with advocating "an independent nominating commission" is hiding from the public the inevitable lawmaking function of judges (particularly state supreme court justices) and thus allowing powerful insiders (typically the bar) disproportionate power. Several states even go so far as allowing the bar to pick some members of the supposedly "independent" nominating commission. 

Judicial Election Campaign Funding

Who Pays for Judicial Races? The Politics of Judicial Elections is a report by Alicia Bannon of the Brennan Center for Justice. The report includes statistics on judicial campaign finance and is written from the Brennan Center's progressive perspective that opposes judicial elections.

Judicial Retention in Hawaii

The progressive Brennan Center praises Hawaii's system of judicial retention, which uses a commission to determine whether sitting judges should be retained for additional terms. Of course, the important question is who appoints the commission. While the Brennan Center is not troubled that some members of the commission are appointed by the Hawaii State Bar Association, I think it undemocratic to weight the votes of some citizens (lawyers) more than the votes of other citizens in determining who holds powerful positions influencing the direction of the law.

State Supreme Court Campaign Contributions

State supreme court campaign contributions detailed in a report by the Brennan Center, which is summarized by law professor Rick Hasen.

The progressive Brennan Center report uses strong language about Kansas conservatives: "Bullying in the Heartland—Political Assaults on the Kansas Supreme Court."

It also discusses North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee.