Polk County Democrats

Electing Judges

It's a bad idea.  The Founding Fathers got it right, correctly deciding that judges must be insulated from political pressure if they are to administer the law impartially.  The federal system they set up in 1789 had all judges appointed by the President, and serving "during good behavior," or in practical terms for life.  That means that federal judges are able to make unpopular decisions, which is what decisions supporting the rights of minorities always are. 

Electing judges, which most of the states do in various forms, sounds like a good thing, this being a democracy and all, but it really isn't.  That politicizes offices that should never be political, and it has all kinds of ramifications.  A judge's job is his livelihood like any other job, and since in most cases it's a very good livelihood, judges will not do anything to jeopardize it.  They will steer away from decisions they know will create enemies for them.  They may tell themselves otherwise, but you cannot alter human nature by donning a robe.

The 2010 election had a chilling case in point.  Iowa has an unusual system, wherein state judges are appointed by the governor, but from a pool of names selected by a special committee, for generous terms of 8 years.  But after 8 years each judge must stand for a "retention" election, where the judge has no opponent but the voters decide whether he stays or goes.  This year in Iowa as elsewhere, their Supreme Court ruled unaminously in favor of gay marriage, a very unpopular decision in conservative circles, but one that most legal scholars believe is required by the equal-protection clause in the Constitution.  Courts all over the nation have reached the same conclusion.

But it drove the Tea Party crowd in Iowa crazy, and in November three of the justices voting on the measure were up for retention -- and all three were removed.  An organized, well-financed, and very angry minority ruined the careers of three judges who ruled the way the law told them to rule.

The baggers were able to do that because nobody votes in judicial elections.  They don't vote because they have no idea who they're voting for or why they're voting at all.  The most difficult thing we as volunteers have to do in an election is to figure out what to do with the judges so we can give voters some advice, but in the end all we can really do is tell them which of the candidates are Democrats.  It is the least intelligent vote anybody ever casts, and because of the inherent harm politicizing these offices represents, judges shouldn't be on the ballot at all.

Elections are for the purpose of deciding policy: big government or small, regulation or no, end the war or continue it, Republicans or Democrats, on and on.  Elections aren't about conflicts between individuals, which is what judges do.  Someone always gets hurt in any legal action, and it is the judge in the end who has to figure out what to do.  If we let that process become a political one, then we miss the whole point that the Founding Fathers wanted us to see.

Change the constitution to appoint the judges, not elect them.