TO APPOINT OR TO ELECT JUSTICES
To Appoint or To Elect Justices
Jonathan Estes
Lee College
INTRO
Federal judges are nominated by a sitting president and confirmed by the senate.
States vary in how they choose to handle their process by utilizing either elections or
appointments. Texas judges are elected by voters and one caveat many people point
out is that they are allowed to raise campaign funds. However, appointments have their
major downfalls as well. Many judges, especially life-term judges, choose to retire, while
in good health, under a president who will replace them with someone who supports
their party. Twenty-three states hold elections for their judges, twenty-six appoint, and
TO APPOINT OR TO ELECT JUSTICES
Michigan does its own thing (Judicial election methods by state, n.d.). How judges are
elected matters and both have their pros and cons.
APPOINTMENTS
Appointed judges are picked by some part of their state's government. In some
cases, the governor will appoint the judge, and some states will require this judge to be
confirmed by the legislature, similar to federal judges. Some state legislature is in
control of the whole process. Some states have commissions that appoint nominees for
the governor to choose from. So appointments have some obvious benefits. Judges
have a job to do, and probably don’t have the time to campaign for an election, so this
method allows for a judge to be able to do his job, however, don’t think that when the
time arises he isn’t campaigning to current or future legislatures so they keep him in. His
job is solely in the hands of the appointer, which in this case means the constituents
don’t have the chance to vote out someone doing a bad job. However, voters can
pressure their representatives and the governor to do something about it. I’ll give an
example of this when talking about elections. If you look at the federal level as an
example, appointments can get extremely ugly. All of Trump's nominees were battered
by the left, even a very qualified woman. The left didn’t even have a majority in the
senate but still tried to stifle the nomination. Now that Biden has office, a justice decided
to retire. Very convenient when utilizing the appointment method to schedule retirement
around your foundation (Curry & Hurwitz, 2016). Either way, the senate had the majority
and asked simple questions to the lady whom Biden appointed. I believe the toughest
question I remember was can you define “woman”, which she could not. The Senate
TO APPOINT OR TO ELECT JUSTICES
approved her, which was the politically courteous thing to do, but you could see how
this method could go back and forth, and quite frankly, citizens don’t want to deal with
long-drawn-out battles. It further divides us as a community.
ELECTIONS
Many states hold elections for their judges, but many have legal quirks that entail
the election process. To put it simply, some states allow the judge to have his party
affiliation on the ballot, while some do not allow it (Judicial election methods by state,
n.d.). This makes voting easy for the straight ballot, strong party affiliate voter. In areas
that do not allow party affiliation on the ballot, this means doing your research, or worse,
an un-educated voter checking a box just because they’re more familiar with the name
rather than the quality of justice they are voting for. Regardless, elections for judges
give the voters the benefit of choosing who they want to represent them. This also
allows the community to hold that judge accountable at the polls. For the most part, if
you aren’t messing up, your name isn’t heard, and generally, re-elections are simple,
especially when talking about smaller local elections. For instance, many were outraged
at district court judge Bruce Jones for sentencing Aguilera-Mederos to 110 years. This
led to a huge trucker movement in the United States and Canada. Colorado, however,
is an appointment state, and this judge will not fear public opinion. The governor of the
state did commute the sentence to 10 years because of massive public outcry
(Pagones, 2022). While the best part of elections is that voters get to keep judges in
check, the downfall to them is their ability to gather corporate funds (Iaryczower, Lewis,
& Shum, 2013). Just like the ads seen on television for presidential elections, state
TO APPOINT OR TO ELECT JUSTICES
justices also gain a lot of donations for people seeking interest, or sympathy, from a
judge to rule on a certain case, possibly, in their favor. While this is a major downfall,
the people at the end of the day still can vote out a justice that makes egregious
accommodations for large donators. In races that include incumbents, odds show that
incumbents generally have a Vegas edge. Most corporations are about making money.
Corporations regularly donate to different political parties, in different areas, because of
their political stance. Favor is generally not given, but respect is. I’d like to think that
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t corrupt to the point where if oil and gas companies
donated to her elections in an amount that would triple her previous donations, she
wouldn’t start voting on legislation same as a republican. I believe all politicians are
corrupt to a degree first of all. Many make a salary far less than mine and have three
waterfront beach houses in California. Even locally in chambers county, many elected
officials have a salary that’s declared to the public, which is similar to teachers, and live
quite lavishly. Donations are monitored and reported quite heavily and can only be used
on campaign efforts, so I do believe quid pro quo isn’t in play as much here. It’s the
money that you don’t see that politicians are influenced by. This goes for justices
elected and appointed.
CONCLUSION
I saved my opinion of preference for the conclusion. I walked into this paper, a
little upset that I was given an assignment in which the video I was required to watch,
bashed the political party I align with. I’m perfectly fine with it as long as you are
introspective and highlight negatives and positives from both sides, which did not
TO APPOINT OR TO ELECT JUSTICES
happen in that video. Many young and impressionable students are incredibly
vulnerable to teacher influence, similar to how judges whose campaigns are heavily
financed by certain companies may cater to their interests to gain favor. There are
certainly many factors that go into which method is better. One article showed that
judges who were appointed had a more constant voting record than those who were
elected. It could be good for the judges in an election year “tighten up”. It could be bad
that appointed judges have little fear of the public. You can Willy Wonka those
statements with a “hold on, strike that, reverse it”, and it equally is correct. For this
paper, I must choose. Since I am a well-informed voter, who identifies with a specific
party more so than another, I feel that I have to ability to research, which I do, on
candidates in primaries and elections to pick the best person for the job, who will watch
out for my beliefs and interest. If I was not an involved voter and did little to no research,
then trusting in your members of the legislature to act in your best nature is also not a
terrible answer either, especially if there is a low voter turnout. I believe both methods
are effective and have their ups and downs, I like the ability to vote out people who have
bad report cards.
TO APPOINT OR TO ELECT JUSTICES
Works Cited
Curry, T. A., & Hurwitz, M. S. (2016). Strategic Retirements of Elected an Appointed Justices: A Hazard
Model Approach. The Journal of Politics Volume 78, Number 4, 15.
Hanssen, A. F. (1999). The Effect of Judicial Institutions on Uncertainty and the Rate of Litigation: The
Election Versus Appointment of State Judges. The Journal of Legal Studies Volume 28, Number 1,
28.
Iaryczower, M., Lewis, G., & Shum, M. (2013). To elect or to appoint? Bias, information, and
responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians. Journal of Public Economics, 230-244.
Judicial election methods by state. (n.d.). Retrieved from Ballotpedia:
https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_election_methods_by_state
Pagones, S. (2022, January 6). Foxnews.com. Retrieved from Fox News:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/colorado-truck-judge-jared-polis-rogel-aguilera-mederos