Download or read book Judicial Elections in the 21st Century written by Chris W. Bonneau and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading authorities present the latest cutting edge research on state judicial elections. Starting with recent transformations in the electoral landscape, including those brought about by U.S. Supreme Court rulings, this volume provides penetrating analyses of partisan, nonpartisan, and retention elections to state supreme courts, intermediate appellate courts, and trial courts. Topics include citizen participation, electoral competition, fundraising and spending, judicial performance evaluations, reform efforts,attack campaigns, and other organized efforts to oust judges. This volume also evaluates the impact of judicial elections on numerous aspects of American politics, including citizens’ perceptions of judicial legitimacy, diversity on the bench, and the consequences of who wins on subsequent court decisions. Many of the chapters offer predictions about how judicial elections might look in the future. Overall, this collection provides a sharp evidence-based portrait of how modern judicial elections actually work in practice and their consequences for state judiciaries and the American people.
Download or read book In Defense of Judicial Elections written by Chris W. Bonneau and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most contentious issues in politics today is the propriety of electing judges. Ought judges be independent of democratic processes in obtaining and retaining their seats, or should they be subject to the approval of the electorate and the processes that accompany popular control? While this debate is interesting and often quite heated, it usually occurs without reference to empirical facts--or at least accurate ones. Also, empirical scholars to date have refused to take a position on the normative issues surrounding the practice. Bonneau and Hall offer a fresh new approach. Using almost two decades of data on state supreme court elections, Bonneau and Hall argue that opponents of judicial elections have made—and continue to make—erroneous empirical claims. They show that judicial elections are efficacious mechanisms that enhance the quality of democracy and create an inextricable link between citizens and the judiciary. In so doing, they pioneer the use of empirical data to shed light on these normative questions and offer a coherent defense of judicial elections. This provocative book is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of judicial selection, law and politics, or the electoral process. Part of the Controversies in Electoral Democracy and Representation series edited by Matthew J. Streb.
Download or read book Running for Judge written by Matthew J Streb and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the country, races for judgeships are becoming more and more politically contested. As a result, several states and cities are now considering judicial election reform. Running for Judge examines the increasingly contentious judicial elections over the last twenty-five years by providing a timely, insightful analysis of judicial elections. The book ties together the current state of the judicial elections literature, and presents new evidence on a wide range of important topics, including: the history of judicial elections; an understanding of the types of judicial elections; electoral competition during races; the increasing importance of campaign financing; voting in judicial elections; the role interest groups play in supporting candidates; party organizing in supposedly non-partisan elections; judicial accountability; media coverage; and judicial reform of elections. Running for Judge is an engaging, accessible, empirical analysis of the major issues surrounding judicial elections, with contributions from prominent scholars in the fields of judicial politics, political behavior, and law. Contributors: Lawrence Baum, Chris W. Bonneau, Brent D. Boyea, Paul Brace, Rachel P. Caufield, Jennifer Segal Diascro, Brian Frederick, Deborah Goldberg, Melinda Gann Hall, Richard L. Hasen, David Klein, Brian F. Schaffner, and Matthew J. Streb.
Download or read book Voters Verdicts written by Chris W. Bonneau and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Voters’ Verdicts, Chris Bonneau and Damon Cann address contemporary concerns with judicial elections by investigating factors that influence voters’ decisions in the election of state supreme court judges. Bonneau and Cann demonstrate that the move to nonpartisan elections, while it depresses political participation, does little to mute the effects of partisanship and ideology. The authors note the irony that judicial elections, often faulted for politicizing the legal process, historically represented an attempt to correct the lack of accountability in the selection of judges by appointment, since unlike appointive systems, judicial elections are at least transparent. This comprehensive study rests on a broad evidentiary base that spans numerous states and a variety of electoral systems. Bonneau and Cann use the first national survey of voters in state supreme court elections paired with novel laboratory experiments to evaluate the influence of incumbency and other ballot cues on voters’ decisions. Data-rich and analytically rigorous, this provocative volume shows why voters decide to participate in judicial elections and what factors they consider in casting their votes. A volume in the series Constitutionalism and Democracy
Download or read book Election Law in the American Political System written by James A. Gardner and published by Aspen Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 1202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Election Law in the American Political System offers an easy to teach, student-friendly, intellectually rich casebook with comprehensive coverage of the legal rules and doctrines that shape democratic participation in the 21st century American political system. The second edition of this casebook is updated throughout with new material including identity theory of voting behavior, alternative electoral systems, emerging metrics for evaluating the quality of election administration, and developments concerning the advent of “fake news” in election campaigns. Election Law in the American Political System also includes expanded coverage of developments regarding independent districting commissions, judicial elections, legal standards to adjudicate partisan gerrymandering, and the concept of “wisdom of the multitude.” With redesigned coverage and a thoughtful selection and careful editing of cases, the second edition contextualizes legal doctrine by providing insightful background readings and using expository material to introduce topics. New to the Second Edition: New coverage: Identity theory of voting behavior. Alternative electoral systems, including limited and cumulative voting and the single transferable vote. Evolution of judicial review of democratic processes. Developments concerning the advent of “fake news” in election campaigns. The emerging law of “ballot selfies.” Emerging metrics for evaluating the quality of election administration. Expanded coverage of: Concept of “wisdom of the multitude” Legal standards to adjudicate partisan gerrymandering. Developments regarding independent districting commissions, including an extended excerpt from Arizona State Legislature Judicial elections.
Download or read book The Battle for the Court written by Lawrence Baum and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once largely ignored, judicial elections in the states have become increasingly controversial over the past two decades. Legal organizations, prominent law professors, and a retired Supreme Court justice have advocated the elimination of elections as a means to choose judges. One of their primary concerns is interest group involvement in elections to state supreme courts, which they see as having negative effects on both the courts themselves and public perceptions of these judicial bodies. In The Battle for the Court, Lawrence Baum, David Klein, and Matthew Streb present a systematic investigation into the effects of interest group involvement in the election of judges. Focusing on personal-injury law, the issue that has played the most substantial role in spurring interest group activity in judicial elections, the authors detail how interest groups mobilize in response to unfavorable rulings by state supreme courts, how their efforts influence the outcomes of supreme court elections, and how those outcomes in turn effectively reshape public policies. The authors employ several decades’ worth of new data on campaign activity, voter behavior, and judicial policy-making in one particularly colorful, important, and representative state—Ohio—to explore these connections among interest groups, elections, and judicial policy in a way that has not been possible until now.
Download or read book From Ballot to Bench written by Philip L. Dubois and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-07-03 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over several decades, many U.S. states abandoned the practice of selecting their judges by direct popular election and adopted the Missouri Plan of judicial selection. In From Ballot to Bench, Philip L. Dubois subjects the various criticisms raised against judicial elections to a more searching scrutiny than previously has been attempted. Dubois carefully reviews the three central counts on which judicial elections have been faulted: for lowering the quality of the bench, for impairing judicial independence, and for failing to secure judicial accountability. After concluding that the potential for judicial elections to hold judges popularly accountable is what might commend them over alternative selection methods, Dubois concentrates on the analysis of empirical evidence to evaluate judicial elections as mechanisms of accountability. The study examines all the statewide partisan and nonpartisan elections for state supreme court justices in non-southern states from 1948 to 1974. Included is a detailed examination of voter participation, electoral competition, the behavior of judicial electorates, and the patterns of gubernatorial vacancy appointments. An analysis of decision making on eight state supreme courts also tests the relationship between different selection systems and judicial behavior. Dubois finds that partisan elections maximize voter participation, meaningfully structure voter choices, minimize accession to the bench by appointment, and allow popular control over gubernatorial appointments. Additional evidence on the extent of partisan voting by judges selected under different methods leads Dubois to conclude that partisan elections are superior to both nonpartisan elections and nonelective selection methods as instruments of accountability. The importance of the questions addressed, the breadth of the data collected, and the unorthodox conclusions offered make this a significant book for political scientists, judges, lawyers, and public officials.
Download or read book Free to Judge written by Michael Kang and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that wealthy people use their money to influence things, including politics, law, and media will surprise very few people. However, as Michael S. Kang and Joanna Shepherd argue in this readable and rich study of the state judiciary, the effect of money on judicial outcomes should disturb and anger everyone. In the current system that elects state judges, the rich and powerful can spend money to elect and re-elect judges who decide cases the way they want. Free to Judge is about how and why money increasingly affects the dispensation of justice in our legal system, and what can be done to stop it. One of the barriers to action in the past has been an inability to prove that campaign donations influence state judicial decision-making. In this book, Kang and Shepherd answer that challenge for the first time, with a rigorous empirical study of campaign finance and judicial decision-making data. Pairing this with interviews of past and present judges, they create a compelling and persuasive account of people like Marsha Ternus, the first Iowa state supreme court justice to be voted out of office after her decision in a same-sex marriage case. The threat of such an outcome, and the desire to win reelection, results in judges demonstrably leaning towards the interests and preferences of their campaign donors across all cases. Free to Judge is thus able to identify the pieces of our current system that invite bias, such as judicial reelection, and what reforms should focus on. This thoughtful and compellingly written book will be required reading for anybody who cares about creating a more just legal system.
Download or read book Judicial Politics in Texas written by Kyle Cheek and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2005 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, judicial elections have changed dramatically. The elections themselves have become increasingly partisan, interest group involvement in judicial races has escalated, recent court decisions have freed judicial candidates to speak more openly than ever before about their judicial ideologies, and the tenor of judicial campaigns has departed significantly from what were once low-key, sleepy affairs. This book examines the evolution of the new rough-and-tumble politics of judicial elections by focusing on Texas, a bellwether for the new judicial selection politics in America. The Texas experience illustrates what can - and usually will - go wrong when judges are elected, and lays the path for meaningful reforms to stem the tide of the new politics of judicial elections.
Download or read book Judicial Elections in the States written by Philip L. Dubois and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Justices on the Ballot written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Supreme Court and Elections written by Charles L. Zelden and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2009-09-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voting is simple in the United States, right? The process of voting (organizing, running and tabulating the results of a popular election) is, in fact, a highly contested act whose forms, meanings, and practical boundaries are open to widely differing interpretations. From questions of who can vote to the tricky problem of accurately counting the votes, popular democracy is still a work in progress in the United States. Add in the complexities of politics and the picture becomes even more complicated. Taking a chronological approach to the topic, The Supreme Court and Elections explores the ways that the Court has struggled with these questions. From the earliest days of the Union when the Supreme Court refused to address the topic, to the early struggles with the Fourteenth Amendment’s impact on the question of who can vote, to the rise and fall of race-based disenfranchisement, to our recent issues of proper districting, campaign finance reform and the struggle to find a workable voting technology, the essay and documents in this reference illuminate the multifaceted nature of voting and election laws. At the same time, this title provides in-depth analysis of the impact of the Court in shaping this ongoing history. Topics addressed in The Supreme Court and Elections include the following: The Nature of Election Law/Voting Rights and the Impact of the Court Impact of the Civil Rights Amendments Voting in the late 19th And early 20th centuries Disenfranchisement and the Court Redistricting cases Majority-Minority districts Campaign finance reform Bush v. Gore and beyond This title also interweaves select sections of primary source documents in an easy-to-follow format: The U.S. Constitution The Voting Rights Act (1965) and the later Amendment (1982) Excerpts from Federal Voting Statutes Supreme Court cases President Lyndon Baines Johnson excerpts Contemporaneous news articles Court Briefs Focusing on the practical problems of U.S. voting and its complex development within the framework of the political branches of the government, students and researchers will benefit from the clear picture painted by the author of the current elective structure. Essay and document based, The Supreme Court and Elections is the definitive reference on the application of U.S. law on Americans right to vote and the resulting participatory democracy.
Download or read book Justice in Jeopardy written by American Bar Association. Commission on the 21st Century Judiciary and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
Download or read book Who is to Judge written by Charles Gardner Geyh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An elected judiciary is virtually unique to the American experience and creates a paradox in a representative democracy. Elected judges take an oath to uphold the law impartially, which calls upon them to swear off the influence of the very constituencies they must cultivate in order to attain and retain judicial office. This paradox has given rise to perennially shrill and unproductive binary arguments over the merits and demerits of elected and appointed judiciaries, which this project seeks to transcend and reimagine. In Who Is to Judge?, judicial politics expert Charles Gardner Geyh exposes and explains the overstatements of both sides in the judicial selection debate. When those exaggerations are understood as such, it becomes possible to search for common ground and its limits. Ultimately, this search leads Geyh to conclude that, while appointive systems are a preferable default, no one system of selection is best for all jurisdictions at all times.
Download or read book Regulating Judicial Elections written by C. Scott Peters and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: State judicial elections are governed by a unique set of rules that enforce longstanding norms of judicial independence by limiting how judicial candidates campaign. These rules have been a key part of recent debates over judicial elections and have been the subject of several U.S. Supreme Court cases. Regulating Judicial Elections provides the first accounting of the efficacy and consequences of such rules. C. Scott Peters re-frames debates over judicial elections by shifting away from all-or-nothing claims about threats to judicial independence and focusing instead on the trade-offs inherent in our checks and balances system. In doing so, he is able to examine the costs and benefits of state ethical restrictions. Peters finds that while some parts of state codes of conduct achieve their desired goals, others may backfire and increase the politicization of judicial elections. Moreover, modest gains in the protection of independence come at the expense of the effectiveness of elections as accountability mechanisms. These empirical findings will inform ongoing normative debates about judicial elections.
Download or read book Rethinking American Electoral Democracy written by Matthew J. Streb and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While frustration with various aspects of American democracy abound in the United States, there is little agreement over—or even understanding of—what kinds of changes would make the system more effective and increase political participation. Matthew J. Streb sheds much-needed light on all the major concerns of the electoral process in the thoroughly revised third edition of this timely book on improving American electoral democracy. This critical examination of the rules and institutional arrangements that shape the American electoral process analyzes the major debates that embroil scholars and reformers on subjects ranging from the number of elections we hold and the use of nonpartisan elections, to the presidential nominating process and campaign finance laws. Ultimately, Streb argues for a less burdensome democracy, a democracy in which citizens can participate more easily in transparent, competitive elections. This book is designed to get students of elections and American political institutions to think critically about what it means to be democratic, and how democratic the United States really is. Part of the Controversies in Electoral Democracy and Representation series, edited by Matthew J. Streb.
