Gavel Grab

Today’s Wall Street Journal published five letters responding to last week’s editorial, “The ABA Plots a Judicial Coup.” The authors include American Bar Association President H. Thomas Wells Jr., Justice at Stake Executive Director Bert Brandenburg, and Greg Musil, chair of Johnson Countians for Justice, which is fighting a ballot measure to end merit selection for judges in Johnson County, Kansas. Here is a link to today’s letters.

The Journal editorial is flawed by serious factual errors, wrongly stating that the commissions would have binding power,  and would intrude on presidential authority to nominate federal court judges. As noted in two Justice at Stake commentaries, the ABA plan is entirely voluntary. Its primary goal is to defuse partisan bickering by promoting bipartisan community input at the front end.

Because the Justice at Stake letter was edited somewhat for space, as were several other letters, we’re reprinting the original version that we e-mailed to the Journal.

Dear Editor:

The Aug. 14 editorial on judicial selection includes several errors. It asserts that selection commissions would pick nominees, even though the bipartisan commissions proposed by the American Bar Association would merely recommend potential nominees. Senators would of course be free to ignore these recommendations, just as presidents can ignore the senators. The editorial also errs in describing my organization’s position on judicial selection. Justice at Stake is a nonpartisan partnership of 50 groups—including defense attorneys, business leaders and civic groups—that does not endorse any system of selecting judges.

Americans are hungry for an alternative to endless judicial wars. In Washington, they’re weary of partisanship and gridlock. In the states, where Supreme Court candidates have raised more than $165 million since 1999, more than 75 percent of Americans believes that campaign cash is affecting courtroom decisions. In a 2004 Illinois race, two candidates raised $9.3 million. “That’s obscene,” said the winner on election night. “How can people have faith in the system?”

Many reforms are available to keep judges accountable to the law rather than special interest pressure. Merit selection and retention elections are used in dozens of states because they help produce qualified applicants and tame the money chase, while giving people the right to vote out judges they don’t like. Public financing of judicial elections lets judges spend their time talking to voters instead of dialing for dollars from attorneys, businesses and party bosses. Recusal would restore public confidence in cases where judges hear cases involving parties who have spent millions supporting their election.

Bipartisan solutions to the court wars won’t please partisans and ideologues. But they would be a welcome relief to the majority of Americans who want courts to be impartial and partisan politics left outside on the courthouse steps.

Bert Brandenburg
Executive Director
Justice at Stake Campaign

Tags: American Bar Association, Johnson Countians for Justice, Judicial Nominating Commissions, Justice at Stake, Wall Street Journal