Gavel Grab

An Ohio newspaper, with an eye on a recent federal appeals court ruling on judicial election rules in Kentucky, says the Buckeye State may be forced in the future to think about a better way of picking judges.

The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said judicial candidates in Kentucky may seek office with advertised political party affiliations and seek campaign donations directly from voters (see Gavel Grab). It said the rules infringed upon free speech rights.

“While [party] political identification may be an unhelpful way to pick judges,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote about one Kentucky rule, “it assuredly beats other grounds, such as the all-too-familiar formula of running candidates with familiar or popular last names.”

An editorial in the Cleveland Plain Dealer asserted that judicial election rules similar to those struck down in Kentucky survive in Ohio. And the “all-too-familiar formula” of using candidates with popular surnames could be Ohio’s, it said. The editorial added, “[A] judicial candidate’s name is about all Ohio lets voters know about him or her.”

Ohio may one day face the same challenge as Kentucky, the editorial continued:

“Either the state gives its judicial candidates free rein — with, yes, a risk of wild electioneering — or the state finds a better way of choosing judges than the method it uses today.

“That shouldn’t be hard: Almost any other method would be an improvement on the oft-criticized — and deservedly so — ‘name game.’”