For more than a decade, special interests have engaged in increasingly partisan efforts to tilt the scales of justice, spending tens of millions of dollars to elect judges whom they believe fit their political beliefs. Now these assaults on America’s courts are expanding in troubling new ways and in dimensions we have never witnessed.
In states as dissimilar as Florida and Iowa, interest groups are seeking to oust judges because they disagree with a few rulings in controversial cases. By focusing on retention elections a historically low-key vote focusing on judges’ professional qualifications these groups have threatened to puncture a protective shield that keeps politics outside the courthouse.
