Cancellation of Georgia Supreme Court Election Raises Concerns about the Role of Interim Judicial Appointments

Georgia’s Supreme Court recently decided whether the next member of that court would be elected by the state’s people or appointed by the governor. With six justices recused (and temporarily replaced by five lower court judges), Barrow v. Raffensperger let stand the Georgia Secretary of State’s cancellation of an election to fill resigning Justice Blackwell’s seat, thus allowing Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to appoint Blackwell’s successor.

Georgia’s Constitution provides that “All Justices of the Supreme Court ... shall be elected on a nonpartisan basis for a term of six years. The terms of all judges thus elected shall begin the next January 1 after their election.” (Art. 6, § 7, Par. 1). “Vacancies shall be filled by appointment of the Governor,” (Art. 6, § 7, Par. 3) and “An appointee to an elective office shall serve until a successor is duly selected and qualified and until January 1 of the year following the next general election which is more than six months after such person's appointment.” (Art. 6, § 7, Par. 4)

Justice Blackwell’s current term is set to end Dec. 31, 2020, and a May 19, 2020, election was scheduled to fill the next standard six-year term for his office, which would begin on Jan. 1, 2021. However, on Feb. 26, 2020, Justice Blackwell submitted a letter to Governor Kemp resigning from his office effective Nov. 18, 2020. The Governor accepted Justice Blackwell’s resignation and announced that he would appoint a successor to the office. The Georgia Secretary of State canceled the May 19 election for the next term of Justice Blackwell’s office on the ground that Blackwell’s resignation, once it was accepted, created a vacancy that the Governor could fill by appointment, and thus no election was legally required. The Georgia Supreme Court agreed in Barrow v. Raffensperger.

However, a dissent argued the secretary of state cannot cancel an election “based on an expected or highly likely vacancy in the office” and progressive Ian Millhiser objected to this “scheme to keep Blackwell’s seat in the GOP’s hands.” Millhiser predicted in Vox that “The upshot of Barrow is likely to be that when a justice who belongs to the same party as the governor wishes to retire, they will submit a post-dated resignation similar to the one Blackwell submitted to Kemp. That will effectively give that justice’s party an extra two years to hold on to the justice’s seat before the next election takes place.”

Interesting to note that Millhiser’s characterization of the judicial seat as “in the GOP’s hands” refers to a state with ostensibly non-partisan elections. And Millhiser’s reference to “a justice who belongs to the same party as the governor” conflicts with the notion that sitting justices do not identify with a political party or that using non-partisan judicial elections, as Georgia does, can keep partisan politics from the bench.

Thanks to Arrian Ebrahimi for research assistance.

 

SCOTUS Politics With Video

Recent judicial confirmations have laid bare the political divisions present in the nation’s highest court. In the Dole Institute Student Advisory Board’s spring program, two experts on judicial confirmation, law and legal institutions examine politicization of the Supreme Court. Joining the conversation are Lee Epstein, Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor at Washington University, and Stephen Ware, KU professor of law.

Judicial Selection is Senate GOP Leader's "Most Significant, Long-Term Contribution"

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called judge confirmations “the most significant, long-term contribution we are making to the country”.

The NY Times writes that while some nominations are controversial in "other cases, the nominees have carried vaunted résumés and commendations from their home-state senators, and in the spirit of bipartisanship, several of the district court nominees were first selected by President Barack Obama. For the most part, those nominees have passed through the Senate (though often along party-line votes) with the ministerial ease once expected for judicial confirmations."

Reforming SCOTUS For Ideological Balance

As decisions by — and appointments to — the Supreme Court have become increasingly divisive, several reformers suggest replacing justices' life tenure with non-renewable terms of 18 years, such that one term ends every two years. That way, as Nevada Law Professor David Orentlicher explains, "less would be at stake with each nomination, justices could not time their retirements for partisan reasons, and appointments would be divided more evenly between Democratic and Republican presidents."

Orentlicher says "There is a sound argument to be made that Supreme Court reform is constitutionally required. In particular, principles of due process and the framers’ original intent provide good reason to think that neither a conservative nor liberal Court majority should be able to impose its views on the country."

While I doubt such reform is constitutionally required, Orentlicher notes interesting European examples:

• "In Germany, for example, nominees to the Constitutional Court must receive a two-thirds vote of approval and therefore must appeal to legislators on both sides of the partisan aisle."
• "In many European nations, high court decisions are made by consensus, or at least a supermajority vote, so justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum have to support the courts’ opinions. The U.S. Supreme Court itself observed a norm of consensual decisionmaking for most of its history. Until 1941, the justices typically spoke unanimously. Only about 8 percent of cases included a dissenting opinion. Now, one or more justices dissent in about 60 percent of rulings."

Republicans "Take Democrats' Lunch Money" on Post-Kavanaugh Judicial Selection

Liberal advocacy group Demand Justice charges Democrats “didn’t just get stuffed in a locker here; they had their lunch money taken,” in failing to delay confirmation hearings for lower federal courts. Good response that Dems secured an agreement to prevent confirmation of judges before the election but lack the power to prevent confirmation hearings now, and thus actual confirmations during the lame-duck session after election.

One of the judicial nominees, Allison Rushing, is 36 years old, and 11 years out of law school.

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.

Federal Judicial Confirmation Votes Getting Closer

Senate confirmation votes on federal judges are getting closer over the last few decades reports John Gramlich for the Pew Research Center.

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.  

Battle Over Supreme Court Nomination in New Jersey Mirrors Battle for US Supreme Court Seat

New Jersey judges are selected basically the same way federal judges are: executive branch nominates and then senate votes to confirm. "All New Jersey judges are appointed initially to seven-year terms and must be re-nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate to gain tenure until the mandatory retirement age of 70," explains NJ.com.

Much like at the federal level where the executive belongs to one party and the senate majority comes from the other party, NJ's Republican governor Chris Christie faces a Democratic senate. NJ Senate President Stephen Sweeney declined to give a hearing to Christie's latest nominee to fill the final vacant seat on New Jersey's highest court. He said the governor is trying to "pack" the bench with Republicans in a heavily Democratic state.

Republican state Sen. Kevin O'Toole said Republicans "deserve a 4-2-1 advantage on the court because a long-standing, unwritten rule that the party of the sitting governor should have an edge.
[Democrat] Sweeney insists Bauman would actually give the GOP a 5-2 advantage because Justice Jaynee Lavecchia is actually a Republican despite being registered as an unaffiliated voter."

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.

Partisan Controversy on Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission

The Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission was accused of playing partisan politics, according to the Oklahoman. The Commission suggested only two candidates, both Democrats, for a judgeship even though required by law to submit three candidates. "The two candidates whose names were provided to the governor were Democrats, and the two who were eliminated were Republican, said Rep. Justin Wood, R-Shawnee. Commission leaders say their search produced only two qualified candidates, and party politics had nothing to do with it."