Grass Is Always Greener

By Kleinheider Posted on May 12, 2008 at 5:04 pm

The State of Washington is in a position diametrically opposed to that of Tennessee when it comes to judges.

Where many in Tennessee are upset with the current system of of selection and retention and looking at the possibility of electing judges by direct popular election (as the state constitution proscribes), Washington has those elections and is looking for a better solution:

[A]fter years like 2004 and 2006, where we had a couple high-profile, expensive, and acerbic races, much ado is made about campaign money and special interests tainting the election of officers to what’s supposed to be a politically independent branch of government.
Hence a gravitational pull amongst some bar leaders toward ideas like public financing of judicial campaigns and “merit selection,” a form of selecting judges that a number of other states employ.  It goes something like this: a citizen’s commission interviews and endorses a slate of nominees to the Governor who makes an appointment to the bench.  The judge then runs, on an up or down retention basis, after a given term of service.  Last month’s issue of the Washington State Bar News is devoted to a debate on the merits of merit selection, with the “majority report” of a Judicial Selection Task Force arguing decidedly for a merit selection approach to seating Washington judges.

Which is all a long introduction to a short piece in today’s WSJ about Tennessee.  They’ve had merit selection in place for awhile.  And the results confirm the fears of those who favor elections rather than appointments

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