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We Have Met the Special Interests, And We Are They (Symposium: Mulling over the Missouri Plan: A Review of State Judicial Selection and Retention Systems)

eBook details

Title: We Have Met the Special Interests, And We Are They (Symposium: Mulling over the Missouri Plan: A Review of State Judicial Selection and Retention Systems)
Author : Missouri Law Review
Release Date : January 22, 2009
Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
Pages : * pages
Size : 302 KB

Description

The subject of this symposium--special interests and judicial elections is an important one and will be much in the news in light of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. (1) In Caperton, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause was violated when an elected judge participated in a case involving a company whose CEO spent large amounts of money to help elect the judge. (2) My purpose here is to broaden our focus and argue that, while the influence of campaign contributors is likely to draw most of the popular attention surrounding the power of special interests within the judiciary, (3) the exercise of judicial power will advantage certain interests at the expense of others regardless of the method of judicial selection a particular state uses. Accordingly, we should be careful that attempts to control the influence of special interests do not, in fact, simply advantage one set of special interests. I have two major points. First, because there is no such thing as a general interest, it makes no sense to speak of "special" interests. Second, judicial decisions make policy. In so doing, they benefit certain interests at the expense of others, whether judges are selected by elections, appointments, or some hybrid system. So, it should not be surprising that politics pervades the choice of judges under every system used or considered today. No selection system may be capable of eliminating the power of interest groups, but the selection system may determine which of those interests are benefited. As a result, debates about judicial selection should be viewed skeptically and are far more likely to reflect disagreements about policy than about the appropriate selection methods to ensure judicial quality.