The Shiny New Target for Political Spending
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2022
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
State supreme court elections, for a long time, were an afterthought; filler for the ballot’s second page. But with questions of abortion rights on the line, this year both parties started pouring money and attention on the races across the country. Even where the races are explicitly “non-partisan,” the partisan political machine has arrived.
Guest: Erik Ortiz, staff writer for NBC News focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There's something so romantic about winter and I don't know whether that's just because |
| 0:05.4 | I'm a bit for homebody and I love a 5. |
| 0:08.0 | But I think it's just the holiday period, it's just for me, it's the most romantic period. |
| 0:14.2 | And I think anyone who's listened to my records will know that I'm quite a big fan of romance. |
| 0:18.8 | Join every sip with Red Carp's Now Back at Starbucks. |
| 0:33.0 | While you and I were paying attention to this month's midterm elections to puzzle out who |
| 0:37.3 | is going to gain control of the US House or the Senate. |
| 0:41.3 | Eric Ortiz, from over at NBC News, he was focused on something else. |
| 0:46.6 | Judges. |
| 0:47.6 | You know, did you just hear it gets the shaft in a lot of ways when it comes to coverage? |
| 0:52.5 | Because, you know, and rightly so, everyone cares about, you know, if it's a presidential |
| 0:56.6 | election year or if it's for governor of a state or, you know, even mayoral races can be |
| 1:02.3 | hot ticket races. |
| 1:03.6 | But these sort of races aren't normally at the forefront of voters' minds. |
| 1:10.7 | Eric was paying attention to judges because in a lot of places, they run for election |
| 1:15.2 | two. And in the last few years, their once sleepy races have really woken up. |
| 1:23.5 | All across the country, Eric reported on insurgent campaigns to unseat judges who were perceived |
| 1:29.0 | as too liberal, like in Kentucky, where a Republican state legislator named Joe Fisher |
| 1:35.2 | took aim at the registered independent who was set to become one of the state's most senior |
| 1:40.4 | Supreme Court justices. |
| 1:42.7 | Fisher so badly wanted voters to know about his right wing point of view that he filed |
| 1:47.5 | a lawsuit over it. |
... |
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