Utah Judicial Selection in National Perspective

Utah is interesting, and not just for Mitt Romney being the only senator to break from party over removing President Trump from office. A proposed amendment to the Utah Constitution is a chance to note that Utah is also interesting because its method of supreme court selection seems to appeal both to advocates of "merit selection" and to people (like me) who reject that label, and what it often conceals, in favor of "democratic appointment."

The gist of "merit selection" (better called the "Missouri Plan") is that applicants for a judgeship are vetted by a nominating commission that supposedly cares about "merit" rather than "politics". Only the commission's three (or so) finalists may be chosen by the governor to fill the judgeship.

With the commission playing such a key role as gatekeeper to the court, the key is who appoints the commission? Who picks the picker?

Unfortunately, many "merit selection" states allow the bar to pick some members of the commission,  which violates basic democratic equality by privileging lawyers above their fellow citizens in the selection of important public officials. These officials, as every lawyer knows, sometimes move the law in a progressive direction or a conservative direction. State supreme court justices are important lawmakers.

Important lawmakers should, in our democratic society, be exercised by people selected in a democratic manner.

Fortunately, this does not have to mean electing judges. That sort of direct democracy is not as good for judges as the indirect democracy of having the executive and legislative branches select the judicial branch, as we do for federal judges with senate confirmation. In fourteen states (listed below), the governor's judicial nominees to the highest court are confirmed by the senate, whole legislature, or other popularly-elected officials. This is the usual method of "democratic appointment" I support.

But suppose the governor must pick from a commission's finalists before sending the governor's pick to the senate for confirmation? That three-step process (commission to governor to legislature) is  how Utah judges are selected.

This is still "democratic appointment" if the commission is selected in a democratically-legitimate way, as opposed to having commissioners selected by the bar. Fortunately, 4 of the 7 members of the Utah Appellate Nominating Commission are selected in a democratically-legitimate way--by the governor. Two more the governor also gets to appoint but only from a list of nominees submitted by the Utah State Bar. The chief justice appoints another member of the Utah Judicial Council to serve as a nonvoting member of each commission.

So Utah does give the bar a formal role it should not have w/r/t 2 of the 7 commissioners. But that's far from the states that allow the bar to pick (not merely suggest names to the governor) about half the commission. And I wonder whether Utah governors ever reject the bar's suggestions as occurs in Florida, which has a similar system?

Utah calls its system "merit selection" and its constitution says "Selection of judges shall be based solely upon consideration of fitness for office without regard to any partisan political consideration."
Yet it nevertheless manages to be (almost completely?) democratically legitimate. Good for Utah.

The 16 states that select their high courts with a democratic method of appointment are:

California
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont
Virginia

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

Governor Supports Removing Bar Power From Iowa's Judicial Selection

Iowa is one of a few states that privilege lawyers in judicial selection by allowing the bar to select members of the judicial nominating commission. This undemocratic violation of the one-person-one-vote principle is criticized by me in this video focused on Iowa, and in this national article (linked).

Fortunately, a bill to remove this bar favoritism has been introduced in Iowa. The bill would allow democratically elected officials to select members of the judicial nominating commission. Gov. Kim Reynolds supports the bill.

Thoughtful commentary by Vanderbilt Law Professor Brian Fitzpatrick

More on Iowa judicial selection

Will Divided Government Ever Again Confirm a Supreme Court Justice?

Republicans were guilty of "denying Obama his constitutional right to appoint a Supreme Court justice with almost a year left in Obama’s term," according to Thomas L. Friedman's column in the New York Times today, which links an NPR story saying: “Supreme Court picks have often been controversial. There have been contentious hearings and floor debates and contested votes. But to ignore the nominee entirely, as if no vacancy existed? There was no precedent for such an action since the period around the Civil War.”

Friedman writes:

In a speech in August 2016, McConnell boasted: “One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, ‘Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.’”

That was a turning point. That was cheating. What McConnell did broke something very big. Now Democrats will surely be tempted to do the same when they get the power to do so, and that is how a great system of government, built on constitutional checks and balances, strong institutions and basic norms of decency, unravels.

Possibly, but I'm not so sure. I wonder if presidents will still be able to get justices confirmed by opposing-party senates if the president offers deals like "Vote for my SCOTUS nominee and I'll sign your bills on immigration and taxes." Such deals would be an example of the "logrolling" long central to the sausage-making of legislation.

Florida Supreme Court Selection Litigation

Three Florida Supreme Court justices are required to leave the court in January because of reaching a mandatory retirement age. All three are, the Orlando Sentinel writes, part of what is "widely considered a left-leaning majority on the seven-member court." That has led to the possibility that their replacements could spur a rightward shift of the court, debate about whether Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who will also leave office in January, should have the authority to appoint the new justices or whether that power should go to his successor. 

The Judicial Nominating Commission will have 60 days — expiring shortly after the election — to nominate a list of three to six people for each court vacancy. Unless a lawsuit stops this process. "The League of Women Voters and Common Cause of Florida have asked the state supreme court to stop the Judicial Nominating Commission from nominating candidates to fill the vacancies," The Tampa Bay Times reports. "Their case was previously struck down because Scott had not yet picked new justices, but last week, he directed the commission to begin seeking nominees."

Trial and Appellate Judges Should be Selected by Different Methods

Tailored Judicial Selection is Maine Law Professor Dmitry Bam's new article in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review.

The abstract says in part:

"approximately forty states using a uniform selection method for all levels of their state courts. For example, in fourteen states all judges are appointed by the governor from a list submitted by a judicial nominating commission. Another fourteen use nonpartisan elections for all their judges. Eight more use partisan elections for all their judges. All in all, once a state chooses a selection and retention method for its judges, it adopts that approach for the whole judiciary.

But it does not have to be this way. In this article, I will suggest that we should at least consider tailoring the judicial selection method to different levels of the judiciary. After all, judges are not a monolithic, homogenous group, and the work of a trial judge differs significantly from the work of an appellate judge. I will show that different selection methods may be appropriate for trial judges than for appellate judges. What I call “tailored judicial selection” can help address some of the concerns raised by the proponents and the opponents of various methods of judicial selection."

I agree, and thank Prof. Bam for quoting Stephen J. Ware, Originalism, Balanced Legal Realism and Judicial Selection: A Case Study, Kan. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y, Spring 2013, at 165, 181: "The political/lawmaking side of judging looms larger, the higher the court. In other words, the extent to which (inevitable) judicial lawmaking allows judges to inject their political views into law rises, the higher the court. Trial judges play less of a lawmaking role than appellate judges, especially supreme court justices, simply because court systems are hierarchical and trial courts are at the bottom. The legal rulings of trial courts can be reversed, de novo, by appellate courts. In contrast, appellate courts are often the final word, as a practical matter, on issues of law."

Listen to the Case for "Political Appointment" of Judges

Vanderbilt Law Professor Brian Fitzpatrick and University of Kansas Law Professor Stephen Ware discuss what Prof. Fitzpatrick's recent paper calls "political appointment" as the best way to select state judges.

The Case for "Political Appointment" of Judges

Vanderbilt Law Professor Brian Fitzpatrick authored a new paper arguing for what he calls "political appointment" as the best way to select state judges.

Prof. Fitzpatrick and I will discuss this paper in a Teleforum this Monday, May
21, 2018, 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT for the Federalist Society

"Massive Changes" to North Carolina Judicial Selection?

A special committee of the North Carolina Senate is "looking at whether to propose massive changes to the state's judiciary" according to the Associated Press.

North Carolina judicial elections have been controversial and some testimony "backed altering the state's current method of selecting judges, offering options to legislators focusing more on appointments and confirmations and less on current head-to-head elections."

University of North Carolina law school dean Martin Brinkley said "he personally backs a method mimicking the selection of federal judges — executive branch nominations then subject to legislative confirmation."   I agree.

Suit Challenges Delaware Court's Political Balance Requirement

Delaware's Constitution, Art. 4, sect. 3, says "three of the five Justices of the Supreme Court in office at the same time, shall be of one major political party, and two of said Justices shall be of the other major political party." This political balance requirement, a Delaware lawyer's suit argues, is unconstitutional under the freedom of political association guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

Partisan Judging Data by Joanna Shepherd and Michael Kang

The progressive American Constitution Society released a study finding judges tend to rule for members of their own party in deciding election disputes, and these effects are exacerbated by campaign donations. The report by Emory Law professors Joanna Shepherd and Michael Kang finds that “[j]udicial partisanship in election cases increases, and elected judges become more likely to favor their own party, as party campaign-finance contributions increase.” The authors also highlight that “[t]his influence of campaign money largely disappears for lame-duck judges without re-election to worry about.”

Another progressive organization, the Brennan Center, emphasizes two quotes from the study:

(1) “[i]f judges are influenced, consciously or not, by party loyalty in election cases, they are likely tempted to do so in other types of cases as well.”

(2) “reformers have advocated, among other things, public financing of state judicial campaigns; term limits for state judges; and various merit selection, judicial evaluation, and disciplinary systems,” and this study “bolster[s] the case for judicial selection reform.”

This study is valuable in providing data on the extent to which judges' politics matter to their rulings. However, progressives often err in thinking something like "elected judges are especially political so we should reduce the influence of judicial campaign money or, even better, replace judicial elections with merit selection." This is deeply wrong in several ways.

To some extent, judges should be political. Judges makes law. Lawmaking is part of their jobs, and has been for centuries, especially for high court judges. Lawmakers should, in a democratic society, be selected democratically. "Merit selection" is usually a euphemism for a method of judicial selection that violates the basic principle of democratic equality--the rule of one-person, one vote--by making a lawyer's vote worth more than another citizen's vote. "Merit selection" is a propaganda term for the nominating commission often known more-neutrally as the Missouri Plan. These commission systems often compound their violation of democratic equality by operating in secret so the commission's key vote is hidden from the public and accountability. Finally, Missouri Plan systems usually retain the problems of judicial elections because they usually subject sitting judges to retention elections.

Rather than the anti-democratic, secrecy, and campaign-contribution problems of the Missouri Plan, states should replace judicial elections with a judicial selection appointment process modeled on that found in the US Constitution. In about a dozen states governors nominate judges and they are confirmed by the senate or other popularly-elected body. This judicial appointment process selects judges with a form of indirect democracy, better for the rule of law than the direct democracy of electing judges.

As to judicial retention, the US Constitution gives federal judges job security which strengthens judicial independence compared to requiring judges to win elections to keep their jobs. States don't have to go as far in the direction of judicial independence as life tenure, as a long non-renewable term (say 14 or 20 years) would probably work about as well.  

British Judicial Selection

“Searching for Constitutional Meaning in InstitutionalDesign: The Debate Over Judicial Appointments in the United Kingdom,” by Northwestern University Law Professor Erin F. Delaney. 

The abstract:    

The United Kingdom is undergoing a period of dramatic constitutional change. A spate of reforms ushered in by the Blair government at the turn of the twenty-first century challenged conventional notions of British governance and constitutional structure. In the shadow of these changes, one new and bedeviling institutional task is to reconcile an independent judicial branch, growing in power, with a system of parliamentary sovereignty. This article will analyze the debate over judicial appointments in order to shed light on the position of the modern British judiciary, and the new U.K. Supreme Court in particular, within the British constitutional system. Questions of institutional design expose deep divisions over the perceived extent of judicial power, the relationship of the judiciary to Parliament, and the constitutional justifications for diversity on the bench. Although a weak consensus was achieved in the Crime & Courts Act 2013, stability in the appointments regime is likely temporary. The contested nature of the modern British constitutional system will ensure ongoing debate.

In Britain, Delaney writes, "safeguards protecting judges’ impartiality were developed in parallel with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, so that an 'independent judiciary' was understood as
comprising independent individual judges, rather than seen as a separate and independent
branch. (Indeed, the highest judicial body was a committee of the upper house of
parliament, and the Lord Chancellor, empowered to appoint judges, was at once head of the
judiciary, a member of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, and the presiding officer of the House
of Lords.)"

Delaney writes “the Constitutional Reform Act (2005) [CRA] was heralded as a ‘milestone’ in the separation of powers and a ‘major step forward’ in judicial independence. It included three major changes. First, it created the UK Supreme Court, which, in its own building on Parliament Square, provided a physical demonstration of the new separation between the legislative and judicial branches. To ensure stability, the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary—the Law Lords—were retitled as the initial twelve Supreme Court Justices. Second, the Act dramatically altered the role of the Lord Chancellor, removing his legislative and judicial duties. And, finally, the CRA included various new appointments mechanisms designed to cabin the Executive’s discretion, including the creation of the Judicial Appointments Commission for England and Wales and a selection commission for Supreme Court appointments.”

More on the Commission

Kansas House Votes on Replacing Bar with Senate As Check on Governor's Power to Appoint Supreme Court Justices

Most members of the Kansas House voted to replace the state's bar-favoring "Missouri Plan" nominating commission with a senate confirmation system like that found in the US Constitution, but this reform did not reach the 2/3rds needed for a constitutional amendment.

Which representatives voted for an against shown on this Roll call vote

South Carolina Supreme Court Selection

South Carolina is one of only two states (along with Virginia) in which the legislature selects the supreme court.  In contrast to South Carolina, judges in many states (like federal judges) are appointed in a process that requires the consent of both the other two branches: legislative and executive.  Separation of powers.

Selection of a state Supreme Court justice by the SC General Assembly (legislature) begins with the state constitution which provides that "the General Assembly by law shall establish a Judicial Merit Selection Commission to consider the qualifications and fitness of candidates for all judicial positions on these courts and on other courts of this State which are filled by election of the General Assembly. The General Assembly must elect the judges and justices from among the nominees of the commission to fill a vacancy on these courts. No person may be elected to these judicial positions unless he or she has been found qualified by the commission...."

Now three candidates have cleared screening by the Judicial Standards Commission and are campaigning among legislators. As The State reports, "The election is on Feb. 3 at noon, when the 169 senators and representatives will gather in the House of Representatives. A winning candidate must have 85 votes – one-half of the 169 senators and representatives plus one – to win. A senator’s vote counts as much as a representative’s."

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article56203735.html#storylink=cpy

More on South Carolina judicial selection here.

Judges' Ideologies

Empirical study by Emory law professor Jonathan Remy Nash uses median prison sentence length imposed by a federal trial judge as a proxy for the judge's ideology and "finds no evidence that senatorial ideology has a statistically significant effect" but finds that "the nominating president's ideology does have a statistically significant effect."

Rhode Island Judicial Selection

The Providence Journal reports dealmaking between the governor and legislature on judicial nominations.

Rhode Island gives its judges life tenure.

I think electing judges is much more problematic than appointment of judges by the executive and legislative branches. I don't think I'd want a constitutional restriction on governors nominating legislators. Particularly on a multi-judge appellate court, a recent ex-legislator or two might be healthy diversity. Deal-making in judicial appointments seems to me generally realistic and positive in a well-functioning separation of powers, as opposed to the naive idea that for each judicial vacancy there will usually be one judicial candidate who is clearly the most meritorious in some objective sense. 

Partisan Battle to Appoint to Virginia Supreme Court

Virginia is one of only two states in which the legislature selects the supreme court. As noted earlier,   A Democratic governor recently filled a vacancy with someone (Justice Jane Marum Roush) the Republican legislature recently chose to replace.As the Richmond Times reports, "If the legislature remains in session, Roush would have to leave the court 30 days from Monday without legislative endorsement. If it remains adjourned, McAuliffe could appoint her to another interim term that would last until 30 days following the next session of the General Assembly.