Letter to Rep Riddle: Judicial Influence
Dear Ms. Riddle,
Recently New York’s top court officials decided to bar the state’s hundreds of elected judges from hearing cases involving lawyers and others who make significant contributions to their campaigns, a move that will change the political culture of courts and transform judicial elections by removing an important incentive lawyers have for contributing.
This move bluntly tackles an important issue in our state — money in judicial politics — that deserves more legislative attention.
Similar measures have been adopted recently in Washington, Oklahoma, Michigan and other states, and would take the question of disqualification entirely out of judges’ hands.
Texas, too, should flatly state that “no case shall be assigned” by court administrators to a judge when the lawyers or any of the participants involved donated money in the preceding two years. The reasons should be obvious.
Daniel Schuman has written about the growing problem of money in judicial elections across the nation:
The time is now. I urge you to write or co-sponsor legislation that will build a wall between election donations and judicial assignments.
Please let me know of your intentions to remove this obvious problem in state judicial administration.
Recently New York’s top court officials decided to bar the state’s hundreds of elected judges from hearing cases involving lawyers and others who make significant contributions to their campaigns, a move that will change the political culture of courts and transform judicial elections by removing an important incentive lawyers have for contributing.
This move bluntly tackles an important issue in our state — money in judicial politics — that deserves more legislative attention.
Similar measures have been adopted recently in Washington, Oklahoma, Michigan and other states, and would take the question of disqualification entirely out of judges’ hands.
Texas, too, should flatly state that “no case shall be assigned” by court administrators to a judge when the lawyers or any of the participants involved donated money in the preceding two years. The reasons should be obvious.
Daniel Schuman has written about the growing problem of money in judicial elections across the nation:
What’s the price of justice? Over the last decade, state supreme court candidates raised over $200 million for their elections, two-and-a-half times the $83 million they raised during 1990-1999. The need to raise ever-increasing amounts of money prompted former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to warn of a real and growing “crisis of confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary” in her foreword to “The New Politics of Judicial Elections: 2000-2009.”
The time is now. I urge you to write or co-sponsor legislation that will build a wall between election donations and judicial assignments.
Please let me know of your intentions to remove this obvious problem in state judicial administration.