Should local judges be allowed to solicit campaign contributions in those states that
require them to run in elections for their offices the Supreme Court took up that question
this week and at present it looks like their divided on it the particular case that their
debating involved Lanell Williams Yulee who did solicit donations back in 2009 in an unsuccessful
bid to get a position in the court in Florida there's a law stopping them from doing that
he says that that should be reversed the Florida Supreme Court held up the ban saying that
it promoted the integrity of the judiciary and maintains the public's confidence in an
impartial judiciary to whatever extend we still believe that have a that we have a fully
impartial judiciary he was forced to pay $1,860 in court costs it has now gotten to the Supreme
Court Florida is not the only state that requires judicial elections a total of 39 of 50 states
actually elect local judges unlike at the federal level where judges such as the Supreme
Court justices are appointed for life of the states where elections are held a total of
30 including Florida ban judges from soliciting campaign funds so I would I have one argument
to make on this which is that if we acknowledge as 30 fo those 39 states that you can buy
a judge whose deciding one case why won't acknowledge that you can buy a member of congress
that you can buy a state legislator who can do far broader damage not singularity but
certainly as we know can push bills and make far greater bigger things happen in many cases
than a single judge see Ben that's why the court is in a conundrum here right cause they
know it they know in their guts that if you say oh you can give campaign donations to
a judge they're judges they know well that means you're not really impartial you just
gotta million bucks from that guy you're not impartial right or whatever it might be $10,000
$100,000 on the other hand they have decided as Ben pointed out that if you give it a political
they are impartial which is absurd so this case points out how absurd their earlier decision
was but also how it doesn't really matter because if you give it to the judge and the
judge loses their you know their partiality then you take away the right for the state
and the people the populous of those states to elect their judges you give it to the congress
people well then it doesn't matter cause they appoint the judge and they can get as much
money as they want during an election anyway so if you're running for governor and I'm
giving you $100 Cenk whatever we'll go with a 100 that'll work
could you put this on but you're going I'm influencing you we're and you're going to
have sway other the judge is that's why obviously you shouldn't me aloud to by either one of
them right but that makes sense actually you know and to point out more the internal logical
contradictions here look you have this issue of ok we'll if they're elected then are they
part of the same process as we've been discussing here but that goes to show that maybe it's
not such a good idea to elect judges because once you into that look if we have public
financing and we didn't have to corruption of money in politics and you got Bob and Suzy
and they're running for office they both have the same amount of money and one says I'm
going to hang them all the other says hey let's be reasonable or I'm going to let me
all go you have a choice right but if you under this system it's seems like OK really
you're going to let Exxon Mobile give a judge $100,000 and then Exxon Mobile can have a
case in front of the judge yeah really right really and because of the nature of it it's
probably significantly easier to buy off a judge in races that aren't as contested the
fundraising amounts are much lower it's just much cheaper to elect a judge with a lot of
money because I've voted just every I think every election since I turned 18 every time
that there's a chance to go vote even I who pays pretty close attention to this stuff
don't know the benefits of name recognitions there's no dynasty Michael will a judge and
I'll take the opposing judge and we'll bet on it we don't know that doesn't seem like
a good idea either so yes it does but Michael makes a great great point when and that's
why it's easier to buy a senator from a small than it is from a large state in a large state
you got to spend a lot of money California Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco whereas
in Montana you go here's a million bucks I bought every ad in the state OK and boom that
Senator is now in my back pocket so with judges there's no name recognition it's not like
unless a Clinton or a Bush is running for a judge right you don't know who the guys
are they're both Bob Whathisface so if somebody buys ads for one of them it's gonna give them
an enormous advantage that's what the Koch brothers did in Kansas and the rest or the
Republicans who weren't on the Koch's slate were like what just happened it spent $3,700
on my ads next term and these guys $100,000 they're spending against me if you allow for
election of judges and then you allow for campaign contributions i mean that's it we've
become a banana republic it's a whole sale purchase the whole judiciary if up for auction