Why Do We Elect State Court Judges?

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When you get to the part of the ballot that asks you to vote for a local judge, have you ever thought, “am I qualified to make this decision?” While federal court trial and appellate judges are appointed and enjoy lifetime tenures, state court judges often have to run for election or re-election, and most voters have scant information on the candidates. In California, you can run to be a judge if you have been a lawyer for ten years, no trial experience necessary. And while we expect judges to be neutral, can they be when they have to run for office and take campaign donations? In our next installment of our “Doing Democracy” series, we look at what it means when judges have to stand for election. Guests: Michael S Kang, professor, Northwestern School of Law. Kang is the co-author of "Free to Judge: The Power of Campaign Money in Judicial Elections." He served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, retired judge, Superior Court of California. She is the author of "Her Honor: My Life on the Bench...What Works, What's Broken and How to Change It" Teresa Johnson, incoming president, Bar Association of San Francisco. Johnson is a partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:54.3	When you get to that part of the ballot that asks you to vote for a local judge, have you ever thought, why am I being asked to vote on judges? The practice of voting for
0:59.8	judges is deeply unusual. Only a single other country in the world, Bolivia, elects the majority
1:05.5	of its judges. Here, federal judges are appointed, but judges in 39 states stand for some kind of election.
1:12.5	So, why do we vote on state and county judges if basically every democracy in the world has decided
1:17.5	that popular elections are not the way to fill a judiciary?
1:21.7	We'll talk about the arguments for and against and the evidence for how the new era of big budget
1:26.1	races has affected the decisions
1:28.4	that judges make.
1:29.8	That's all coming up next after this news.
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