Don't Vote for Judge X!

Dear Chief:

I think it is time that you speak out and urge your fellow Minnesotans to give up the right to vote for individual judges. Even though the Minnesota Constitution requires the electorate to elect their judges, we both know that the system has been rigged to prevent actual elections.

First, of course, nobody elects federal judges; they are appointed for life. State judges are almost always incumbents when they stand for election. This arrangement, which has served this state well, has been the custom because judges usually retire midterm, thus giving a governor (of the same party) the opportunity to appoint a new judge, who will then stand for election as the incumbent.

State law was amended so that judges who run on a ballot as incumbents are entitled to put “incumbent” after their name. As you may remember, this was an agreed-upon compromise by the legislature to encourage incumbency retention in judicial elections. It has certainly had that effect.

Your court promulgated a series of rules that essentially prevented any election in the normal understanding of that word. Judges were prohibited from commenting upon issues, raising money, or doing the other things that normally attend to real elections. This system worked well for the independence and health of our judiciary. There was only one glaring fault in this system.

The United States Supreme Court in the White decision ruled these restrictions an impermissible violation of U.S. Constitutional guarantees. As a result, we can now have freewheeling elections for judges in Minnesota, complete with party designation, virtually unlimited fundraising, and television and radio ads. We all know what these kinds of campaigns look like. We endure them every two years.

Anyone who has been in states that have judicial elections understands the horrors of this system—billboards promising that Judge Jones will be a friend of the working man, television ads attacking minority judges for being soft on criminals, and the like. In fact, to view this carnival, one no longer has to drive to Texas, but merely across the border into Wisconsin.