Today, Republicans control 39 of the 63 seats on courts with partisan elections. In states that have contested, partisan, statewide elections for each term on the Supreme Court (Alabama, Michigan, Ohio, Texas and West Virginia), Republicans control 30 of 37 seats. The same corporate interests have backed candidates in states with non-partisan elections for Supreme Court, and have captured an additional 30 seats.
An individual citizen, small business, community, or advocacy group has no chance of seeing justice done if it comes before these judges. They are recruited based on loyalty to a corporate sector and to the Republican Party. They are often unqualified for the office, ignorant of the law of their state, unconcerned with the facts of the cases before them, dismissive of lower court rulings, and without concern for their own professional reputation or the appearance of a biased court. In short, these judges are bought and paid for by the corporations who funded their campaigns.
If these judges remain on the bench, consumersâ rights, environmental protections, and the opportunity for individual citizens to find justice in our court system will continue to diminish, while corporate power and immunity expand. And without question, what happens in one state mushrooms to the rest.
Changing control of our courts comes down to one factor â money. The take-over of our courts occurred because Democratic judges were outspent by 70% or more. A few large corporate checks funneled to candidates or used in third-party, so-called âindependent expendituresâ dwarfed the funds raised by Democrats from individual donors. Our candidates faced hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on TV ads that typically demonized them as âliberalâ and tied them to âpersonal injury lawyers.â Democratic judges failed to respond, often clinging to a sense of judicial decorum, and lacking the financial means to point out who was behind these attacks. These factors must change. This is the mission of the Democratic Judical Campaign Committee (DJCC).
