Effort Begun to Abolish the Election of Judges (Sandra Day O'Connor)

New York Times ^ | December 23, 2009 | John Schwartz

[reaganaut1]

A group of judges, political officials and lawyers, led by the retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, has begun a campaign to persuade states to choose judges on the basis of merit, rather than their ability to win an election.

As a state legislator in the 1970s, Justice O’Connor helped Arizona create a merit selection system for judges. She is now chairwoman of the O’Connor Judicial Selection Initiative, announced this month by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver, to help make judges more than “politicians in robes,” as she has put it.

The group plans a new push to fight judicial corruption, and the perception of corruption that campaign money can cause, by encouraging state initiatives to scrap direct judicial elections. The work will include traveling from state to state, by invitation, to work with lawmakers, policy makers and advocates to build support for selection systems through public education, legislative counsel and political campaigns.

Rebecca Love Kourlis, the founder of the institute, acknowledged that getting voters to give up the right of direct election was “a hard sell,” but she argued, “You’re going to get a better caliber of judge over all.”

Merit systems — like the one that appointed Justice Kourlis to Colorado’s Supreme Court, where she served from 1995 to 2006 — generally involve a selection commission and regular “retention” elections in which voters can decide whether to keep their judges in power. Many states also have separate panels that report on judicial performance so that voters can go to the polls armed with information.

[SierraWasp]

A..... MEN!!!