News & Updates

We join countless others in wishing retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor all the best today on her 90th birthday. Her life's journey has been remarkable, from her historic appointment to the Supreme Court to her inspiring civics and judicial selection achievements. IAALS and the public have benefited greatly from her efforts.

In a recent op-ed, Joanne Slotnik, former executive director of the Utah Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission, touts the state’s successful judicial selection system, which includes robust performance evaluation for judges and retention elections by the public.

In Ohio, state judges are currently chosen in nonpartisan general elections (although they do compete in partisan primaries). But House Bill 460 would allow judicial candidates to place their party affiliations directly on the general election ballot. If the measure becomes law, Ohio would be the second state in recent years to move from nonpartisan to openly partisan elections. 

State courts, where 95 percent of all cases are filed, are powerful. Their decisions can have profound effects on our rights and our lives—from whether Massachusetts officials can detain people based on a request from federal immigration authorities to whether a Michigan voter-initiated redistricting proposal could appear on the ballot.

On November 6, Coconino County became the first rural county in Arizona to voluntarily change from a partisan-popular election of superior court judges to a merit selection-judicial retention election.

IAALS’ recent report describes a large but relatively unknown group of executive branch adjudicators who are not "Administrative Law Judges" (ALJs) governed by the Administrative Procedure Act. The report describes principal Non-ALJ characteristics, giving special attention to the degree to which agencies that employ them seek to protect their impartiality.

As part of the University of Denver’s Engaging Ideas series, IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis was interviewed about the importance of an independent judiciary—and IAALS’ model for sustaining it. In the video, titled “Judging the Judges,” Kourlis discusses how IAALS is helping improve state court systems through the O’Connor Judicial Selection Plan. “Public trust in the judiciary is central to its legitimacy and to its capacity to enforce its orders. Retaining that impartiality, independence, and integrity of the judicial branch, I think in this day and age, is more critical than perhaps it’s ever been.”

Kentucky State Representative Jason Nemes pre-filed bills at the end of 2017 that would change how state appellate judges are selected. Should the bills pass, the governor would select judges from a recommended list of qualified candidates provided by a Judicial Nominating Commission instead of forcing judges to run for election. The public would then cast their vote for or against a given judge in retention elections at the end of each judge’s eight-year term.

No system of judicial selection and retention is perfect; however, merit selection systems attempt to balance judicial independence with voter accountability. Those are the comments of IAALS Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis who, along with IAALS Board Member Chief Justice (Ret.) Ruth McGregor of the Arizona Supreme Court, was interviewed by an investigative reporter for a  Goldwater Institute paper on the benefits of using a merit selection system for municipal judgeships.

On the very day when the Colorado Supreme Court Justices convened for an annual holiday luncheon, which includes all former Justices, a new Justice was added to the Court. Former Chief Justices Bender and Mullarkey, former Justices Kirschbaum, Dubofsky, Hobbs, Martinez, Eid, and yours truly; and sitting Chief Justice Rice and Justices Hood, Boatright, Coats, Marquez, and Gabriel all met to share some holiday cheer and some Court administrative updates. The tradition has been ongoing since before I joined the Court—and it is a wonderful one. We all get a chance to catch up, and to feel part of an institution that is profound and meaningful.

This week, the North Carolina Senate created the new Senate Select Committee on Judicial Reform and Redistricting to consider various options for how the state selects judges. The committee’s formation comes after the North Carolina legislature took several steps recently to shake up the state's judicial system. Back in March, the legislature voted to override the governor’s veto of House Bill 100, which requires North Carolina Superior Court and District Court judges to identify their party affiliation on ballots. Proponents of the bill say voters want to know everything they can about judicial candidates when they vote. Opponents, like the governor, argue the bill politicizes the courts.

This month, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and the American Bar Association Judicial Division released Building a Diverse Bench: Selecting Federal Magistrate and Bankruptcy Judges, a resource that offers practical steps the federal judiciary can take to promote a more diverse bench. A diverse bench is essential to an effective judiciary. A bench that reflects the diversity of the public it serves enhances public confidence in the role of the courts in our democracy, and provides role models for groups underrepresented in the legal profession. And diversity is more than symbolic—having broader perspectives on the bench produces a richer jurisprudence, incorporating a wider and more representative range of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives.

Do the methods by which states choose their appellate judges result in benches with different characteristics? A new study concludes that the most distinctive appellate benches are in "merit-confirmation" states, in which the governor's appointment power is constrained, perhaps substantially, by the required consent of a separately elected body.

Since its founding in 2001, Justice at Stake was a national leader in the movement to promote fair and impartial courts and increase judicial diversity. But last month, the organization’s leaders announced that Justice at Stake was closing its doors. As former executive director Susan Liss explained in a recent ABA Journal article, the money from progressive organizations and individual donors on which the organization had come to depend simply wasn’t coming in.

The Rule of Law is absolutely under attack in the United States of America—from elected officials, state legislative bodies, and groups of individuals. The attacks are apparent in politicians’ tirades, legislative proposals that would limit the authority of courts, and assaults on established principles of law such as federal versus state authority. But, the solution is not to put sandbags along the perimeters and bemoan the idiocy of some people.

Now that a simple majority of votes suffice to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, each party will invariably put forward the most ideologically-extreme candidates that they can. No more moderates, no more coalition-builders, no more impartial judges. Rather, the Court could be populated, over time, by judges who have partisan instincts or agendas—maybe even by judges who have a particular alignment with the president who nominates them.

As reported by the Washington Post, the President is not the only one who has taken on the courts recently: it is also happening in state legislatures around the country. This comes as no surprise to state court watchers; in fact, legislation targeting state courts for unpopular decisions is now commonplace. (Our March 2016, January 2015, and February 2014 blog posts chronicle these efforts.)

Here's an overview of 2016 election outcomes that impacted state courts and judges. Ballot Measures Georgia voters approved Amendment 3, which abolishes the Judicial Qualifications Commission (the disciplinary entity for the state’s judges) and…

Since Colorado is IAALS’ home base, we are thrilled to join in the celebration of the state’s 50th anniversary of the adoption of merit selection for judges. Colorado was at the forefront of a national merit selection movement that took place in the mid- and late-twentieth century.

With our publication Judges Aren’t Sexy: Engaging and Educating Voters in a Crowded World, we offered a range of practical recommendations—including communications strategies and assets for social media and a messaging platform—for communicating with judicial voters. A handful of states have put our recommendations into practice for this election cycle.