Judicial campaign contributions on sharp rise across US

A new report by a team of legal experts finds that tens of millions of dollars have been poured into state judicial elections over the past decade. The report released today by the Justice at Stake Campaign, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, and the National Institute of Money in State Politics looks at the past five elections cycles and documents a surge of spending that has more than doubled from the previous decade, to more than $200 million. The report says the influence of money threatens judicial impartiality, due process and the public's support for the US court system.

James Sample is an associate professor at Hofstra University School of Law and coauthor of the report. In an interview with FSRN, Sample summed up the inherent conflict in election money and the judicial process.

“We have a situation where single individuals or single businesses, single stakeholders, really – in litigation before the very judges who are their beneficiaries are spending millions of dollars and then appearing before the beneficiaries of that largesse.”

The study says that out of 29 elections in the nation’s 10 most expensive states a small group of “super spender groups” emerged, each spending close to half a million dollars to influence the outcome of the election. Professor Sample said that the record spending undermines the constitutional role of the judicial branch, pointing to one case in which a West Virginia coal executive spent three million dollars to help elect a single justice.

“We insist, as a matter of constitutional law and as a matter of sound and functioning government, that people really do enter the courtroom, as – to use the phrase that is engraved in many of those courthouses – equals under the law. And nobody wants to be in a situation where they are in litigation – whether you’re a business or individual or whatever – looking across the court room aisle and knowing that your adversary spent a million dollars, let’s say – or in the case of a West Virginia scenario just a few years ago, 3 million dollars – supporting the judge who may ultimately cast the deciding vote in your case.”

The report did note some success in states that adopted public financing, but called for more reforms, such as stronger financial disclosure laws and more rigorous judicial performance evaluations.

You can find the full report, “The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009” here: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource