Alabama

State supreme court campaigns have set national fundraising and spending records in recent years, but this year’s races are relatively inexpensive with candidates raising just over $1 million to date.

Though plaintiff attorneys and their firms typically back Democratic judicial candidates, Republican chief justice candidate Roy Moore has received $55,000 from these groups. The supreme court is composed of nine Republicans, and Moore’s is the only race of five on the ballot where there is a Democratic opponent.

Former chief justice Roy Moore won a three-way Republican primary race for the chief justice spot and will run against the Democratic nominee in November. Moore was removed from the supreme court in 2003 for defying a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments display from the state judicial building.

With no Democrats filing to run, the March Republican primary will determine the successor to Justice Thomas Woodall, who is not seeking reelection. The two candidates are a court of appeals judge and a circuit court judge, both of whom support partisan elections because they provide a cue to voters regarding a candidate’s philosophy.

The last election for supreme court chief justice, in 2006, was the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history in terms of fundraising, but the three Republicans candidates for the seat in 2012 are setting records so far for what they are not raising.

The three candidates competing to be the Republican candidate for chief justice of the supreme court raised nearly $150,000 in January for the March primary campaign.

A circuit court judge announced her intention to challenge a court of appeals judge in the Republican primary for the open supreme court seat created by Justice Tom Woodall’s retirement. In announcing her candidacy, she pledged not to accept contributions from political action committees.

Only one Democrat is vying for a seat on the state’s appellate courts in 2012. The state’s Democratic Party chairman attributed this to the high cost and contentiousness of judicial elections in Alabama. Three Republican incumbents on the supreme court will be reelected without opposition.

The March 2012 Republican primary could determine who the next chief justice will be. Three Republicans are vying for the seat, but no Democratic challengers have emerged.

Former chief justice Roy Moore, known to many as the “Ten Commandments judge,” announced plans to run for chief justice in 2012. Moore was removed from the court in 2003 for defying a federal judge’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.