Traverse City Record-Eagle

Archive: Friday

May 30, 2008

Editorial: Interest groups battle to influence justices

A recent study of judicial elections in Great Lakes states dispels any doubt that a "For Sale" sign figuratively -- if not literally -- should be nailed to the Michigan Supreme Court chamber.

A report issued jointly by the nonpartisan Justice at Stake Campaign and the Midwest Democracy Network concludes that Michigan, along with Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio, has become "the epicenter of a spreading arms race between corporate interests, trial lawyers, ideological groups and political partisans who are committed to bending state judges to their will."

In other words, these interest groups are battling to get the best justice money can buy. At issue, of course, is the underlying lack of public confidence that justice is, indeed, blind.

The study buttresses a citizen drive for judicial reform spearheaded by the Michigan Independent Supreme Court Campaign. The group collected more than 1,000 signatures of Grand Traverse County residents after a local public forum sponsored by, among others, the area League of Women Voters.

Titled "The New Politics of Judicial Elections in the Great Lakes States," the report confirms retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's warning that "judicial elections are becoming prize fights where partisans and special interests seek to install judges who will answer to them instead of the law and the Constitution."

The report points out that in Michigan, where bickering among justices has become blood sport and where politics is making a mockery of a supposedly "nonpartisan" system, 86 percent of the cases heard by the Supreme Court in the 1990s involved at least one contributor to one or more justices.

Further, "independent groups" paid for 87 percent of the television advertising spots in the 2006 Supreme Court election, an increase from 51 percent four years earlier. The problem is compounded by the fact that Michigan does not require groups paying for so-called issue ads to disclose themselves, even if the ads mention candidates' names.

"Other than their benign-sounding names very little is known about who is underwriting these ads," the reports says. "Stealth TV campaigns amplify the public's fear that courts are becoming political footballs to be tossed around by well-heeled special interests."

The report's conclusion?

"This cheapens the judiciary in the eyes of voters, most of whom already fear that campaign cash affects courtroom decisions."

Advocates have proposed a variety of reforms, including public funding of judicial election campaigns, immediate disclosure of campaign contributions and rule changes requiring judicial disqualification.

But, as usual, it's all about power and access. And in this game politicians -- some wearing black robes -- and their financial benefactors control the process.

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