Bruce Ramsey: "Court campaign-fund debate is a fight for political power"
Last fall's barnyard battle for a seat on the Washington Supreme Court has led to a proposal for public financing of appellate judicial campaigns. Seattle attorney Jenny Durkan spoke for the bill at a recent meeting of the Federalist Society, arguing that all the mudslinging undermines the public image of an impartial court.Of course judges aren't impartial. Only the naive or the cynical would assert otherwise. Jenny Durkan is not naive. Publicly financed campaigns are an attempt to protect the image of an impartial court, while also protecting the reality of its current liberal statist bent.
Read the whole thing.
anti-taxpayer , proUnion clubs need only apply.
Posted by: swatter on February 21, 2007 02:43 PMThe attack on free speech by the Left is is relentless and 2d only to the danger posed by radical Islamists. Other examples of actions that limit free speech include: McCain-Feingold campaign funding limits, bans of hate speech; speech codes in most universities; political correctness; proposals to amend the Telecommunications Act to preserve "net neutrality"(the bill protects Internet content providers like MSN, Google and Yahoo from new competition), and speech limits to protect diversity and multiculturalism.
In the case of judicial election campaigns any critical comment about decisions of sitting judges is invariably labeled negative campaigning. If a sitting judge cannot be called on to explain obviously incorrect or poorly decided cases, how does the electorate become informed about that judges competence to serve? Name recognition, academic and professional training mean very little if the judge is a proactive ideologue. Campaign rhetoric from judges is meaningless. Judges should be required to run against their decisional records. That will never happen if judicial campaigns are publicly funded.
Posted by: Paddy on February 21, 2007 04:42 PMI believe public financing can work in any parties favor Dem, Repub or even Independent. I've seen it get many "regular" citizens elected into office unseating long term incumbents which allows the system to work for the people. Especially when these newly elected officials don't have so many bribes, er private contributions to pay back!
Don't just dismiss this "idea" as something out of the democrats play book. Private money fuels all sides of the fire and in this state the D's have a death grip on the money bags!
Posted by: SP Fan on February 21, 2007 09:12 PMPublic Campaign financing in Arizona and Maine has produced an increased rate of incumbent retention. In North Carolina it produced a coalition of Democrats and Trial Lawyers who (without any counter from other groups) violated the spirit of their system by spending heavily in favor of Democrat candidates --all of whom defeated their publicly financed opponents.
This particular bill has been deliberately drawn up to favor the power of the Governor and Democrat leaning special interests.
We do not have a confirmation process for Judicial appointments, only retention elections. This bill limits Court of Appeals races to c. $30,000 --less than some campaigns will spend on yard signs. Therefore no realistic check will be possible on the Governor's power over the court --a clear violation of judicial independence.
Do not doubt for a minute that the special interest who have designed this bill will be the first to violate it if they believe anyone they oppose might win election to the courts.
Posted by: Alex Hays on February 21, 2007 10:06 PMSorry you found my comment a stretch of the imagination. You are correct that this is the Queen's legislation, like it or not. Perhaps you don't understand the context of my comment. If you need statistics to verify my claims you can find plenty of them here:
http://www.publicampaign.org/pressroom/2006/11/13/clean-elections-candidates-in-three-states-win-dozens-of-state-office-seats
I politely disagree with your assertion and see where it has worked in other states to get regular citizens into office and career politicians out!
Posted by: SP Fan on February 21, 2007 10:21 PM#3 In Washington State last year, 34 of the 122 seats in the legislature were completely uncontested. That's more than a quarter of them. There were 6 complete Districts where no seat was opposed. I can't imagine how any system could be better for incumbents than running unopposed. In Maine, where they have public financing available for challengers, 149 of the 151 seats were contested.
#9 I don't know why you think public financing favors Democrats. In Arizona, hardly known as a Democratic state, public financing was instituted by citizen initiative. Since the program began, 69 Republicans and 61 Democrats have won using public financing. That does not look like there is a partisan bias to me.
Also, I would be curious to know why you believe incumbents have fared better in Arizona and Maine. In last fall's election in Arizona, every single incumbent who ran using private funding was able to win re-election. Every one. I don't know how you could do better than that.
-- Bob Koerner
Posted by: The Green Man on February 21, 2007 11:09 PMSorry for the sidebar, but when liberals attack the BIAW and are allowed to get away with it, it allows the attack to get substance.
Posted by: swatter on February 22, 2007 06:50 AMHowever, what we see in states that make public financing available, is that more and more candidates each year win office using "clean" funds. In Maine, 77% of the House and 83% of the Senate seats are occupied by clean candidates. In Arizona, the numbers also increase each year.
Legislators who I have heard speak on the programs all agree that they enjoy campaigning more when they can be out talking to their constituents, instead of "dialing for dollars" and finding major contributors. This is true of Republicans and Democrats. Nobody gets into politics because they want to be the lackey of some behind-the-scenes power broker. People run for office because they have their own opinions about how to make things better, and they would rather be working on their own issues than fiddling with the Law to protect their contributors (see Stefan's "Sewer of Corruption" articles). Public financing gives them a way to get out from under the thumb of those major contributing groups, and be responsible only to voters.
Posted by: Bob Koerner on February 22, 2007 07:35 AMThose models were produced to attempt neutral outcomes. While each is failing (ME is fairing the best) they began as civic minded exercises.
This proposal is a grotesque power grab, shameful in both its intent and design. It fails to produce a neutral system, because it attempts to create a biased outcome.
It is very sad that reasonable civic minded advocates, hungry for any reform, have been duped into supporting it.
1. The level of funding is profoundly less than other states, and too little for a meaningful campaign. *This is by design.* This bill does not arrive on the scene ab nihilo but in the context of powerful special interests that have stacked the court. This bill renders impossible a meaningful challenge and therefore locks in place the abuses of the past. Certainly no reform.
2. If your intent is to still compare to other states, please respond to the total collapse of the NC system, on which the Governor based this proposal. A collapse that occurred just one election cycle after adoption.
3. The proposal is a violation of free speech. The penalties for non-participating candidates are so severe that no one can choose to run a normal campaign.
3. The bill violates free speech because it imposes CONTENT RESTRICTIONS on candidates. I am absolutely befuddled how limiting what a candidate can say (the bill attempt to prevent negative campaigning) can be seen by any honest observer as anything but anti-free speech. Mr. Koerner must not have read the part of the bill calling for a *code of conduct.*
4. Koerner compares the bail out fund (40 times filing fee for the COA) to what is actually spent on campaigns. This is invalid, remember that the actual amount of funding for COA candidates is c. $6,000. with permission to raise c. $24,000 privately. The 40 times amount is available only to participating candidates whose opponents out fundraise them.
5. The statistics cited by SP Fan are meaningless self promotion by advocates of public campaign financing. Given that they are boasting about NC when that system has absolutely failed is galling -they count as successes NC candidates who cheated! Further the incumbent retention figure is the most important piece of data and it has increased, not declined.
In Washington incumbents will choose this program, because it guarantees their victory.
Scenario 1: Your opponent also participates. Outcome: they have too little money to overcome incumbency and lose. If it looks like they might win, special interests step in (as in NC) circumvent the system and defeat the challenger. After the election it's denounced, but by then it's too late.
Scenario 2: The challenger refuse to participate and runs a normal campaign. The incumbent is matched dollar for dollar with tax payer money and retains the advantage in incumbency and wins.
When public campaign financing INCREASES speech it can succeed (sadly, only temporarily) but this model is based on hostility to free speech, and increasing the power of the governor and special interests.
I say now as clearly as possible this is a violation of judicial independence, an attack on the courts and the path to more power for special interests. Those foolish enough to believe this is a civic minded reform will regret it, and those crass enough to support it because it is a power grab will delight in their skill at manipulating so many.
Posted by: Alex Hays on February 22, 2007 08:48 PM