Meanwhile, the Fair Campaign Practices Committee warned against the practice of lower-bench candidates implying incumbency on the higher bench they're running for by referring to themselves as "Judge" or wearing judicial robes on their yard signs. (The former is a ploy that can be ethically used only by one famous Mr. Reinhold, as the sitcom Arrested Development has shown.) Such heavy policing of lightly disputed campaigns has the feel of hiring hall monitors for summer school.
"The end result," according to a 2002 paper on Washington's judicial elections by David C. Brody, "is that a small minority of the electorate, many of whom do not have a rational basis for their vote, often decides contested judicial races." The success or failure of multi-county, non-statewide ballot measures (which appear last on the ballot) is sometimes pinned on how many voters give up when they hit the judicial section. Dropoff averages around 25% from the big races like senator, president, and governor to the top appellate races. And it continues as the ballot moves to the Superior and District Court races, where, with the possible exception of small towns, voters frequently have never heard anything about the candidates.
danielle rizzolo
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The solution isn't clear—as Baker points out, educating voters on the potentially dozens of lower-ticket judicial races in King County seems next to impossible. And there have been plenty of examples in other parts of the country of highly contentious, issue-filled judicial elections creating disillusionment. But the Washington judicial race that's had the least dropoff in the past eight years? The 2006 contest between Gerry Alexander and John Groen. It says something about our approach that the race that most engaged the electorate is viewed as the worst-case scenario.
While expressing respect for the intelligence of voters, Baker confesses that he thinks judicial elections "are not a very good idea" and that he retired early to allow his replacement to be appointed. He supports "robust debate," and notes that his committee plans to provide comprehensive, nonpartisan performance evaluations of sitting judges to help inform voters. But, he adds, "I think the Constitution allows for and must allow for some limitations on judicial campaign comments. Unless you want a judiciary that has public support only by the 51% that voted for the judge."
When you stop to think about it, it's hard to see why the legal establishment would ever want to open up elections. Why should those relied upon as counsel in the appointment of judges and who call the shots in sham elections want to cede their role to an apathetic, uneducated, and potentially reactionary electorate? Better to retire early and keep the selection process in house.
The story's not that simple, of course. The bar is also trying to look out for the powerless—the criminal defendant who will plead guilty if he can't make bail, the gay couple looking to make a civil-rights claim in a deeply conservative region. But beneath that rationale is the assumption that the public can't distinguish from demagoguery.
You can learn a lot about someone by looking at their bookshelf. According to a 2000 study, the second most-cited book in legal scholarship was Law's Empire by Ronald Dworkin. Beyond claiming for the field an empire, the book features as its protagonist an imaginary super-judge named Hercules.
The title of the most-cited book? Democracy and Distrust.
dagnos@seattleweekly.com
