Kansas Chamber to rate judges (as part of a national movement)

[atommom]

More information on the attack on the judiciary. Note that the group conducting the evaluations has already done the same in 19 other states, rating judges on their pro-business and anti-environmentalist credentials. The attacks on judges are getting louder, but this movement has been working behind the scenes for several years.

Concerned that some judges on the bench are bad for business, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced Tuesday it will pick apart and make public judges' voting records, starting with the Kansas Supreme Court.

"While the chamber says it's doing this objectively, it certainly has an interest and an agenda. Its ultimate goal is influence," said Kansas University law professor Richard Levy. "Look at what's going on at the federal level. I don't think that experience cries out for us to move in that direction. We should want to make the process less political rather than more political."

"When the process turns political," Levy said, "every time a decision is made, somebody loses and becomes a political enemy or opponent. Once we go down that road, judges can't make a decision without looking over their shoulder."

Ebert said the justice-by-justice analysis will be conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based Judicial Evaluation Institute for Economic Issues. The institute's president and executive director, Neil Coughlan, said the organization has already completed similar analyses in 19 other states.According to a 2000 report by the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute, an Oklahoma group with close ties to Wichita-based Koch Industries launched a "nationwide program to promote the election of state judges sympathetic to business interests in environmental and other cases."

http://ljworld.com/section/stateregional/story/201787

[Fridays Child]

1. Maybe the law of unintended consequences will prevail.

People may be pro-business in theory but, if a business is penalized for harming an individual, for example, it may be seen as a heartless corporation. And the judge ruling against it may be seen as a champion of the little guy.

[atommom]

2. More info on this group, from a 2000 report

This report focused on environmental concerns, but also addressed other issues that are "hot" now in 2005.

So far, pro-business advocacy in state judicial elections appears to have had some notable, but limited, effects on the strength and scope of state environmental protection policies. But the threat to environmental protection standards in state judicial elections will likely increase in the years ahead.

While this report focuses on the environmental issue, the environment is by no means the only, or necessarily the most prominent, issue in most judicial elections. Term limits and the death penalty, for example, have been hotly debated in certain state elections in years past. Today if there is a single issue of unifying concern to the business community in state judicial elections, it is "tort reform," a blanket term referring to the business community's effort to limit companies' financial liability to consumers, employees, homeowners and other members of the public. Tort reform encompasses questions about potential liability for environmental harms. But tort reform is obviously much broader than the environmental issue. The environmental issue also includes distinct questions about the scope of government authority to regulate environmental risks and manage natural resources.

This report reinforces frequently expressed concerns about the fairness and integrity of state judicial elections in general. From one standpoint, it is not surprising, so long as judges are selected at the ballot box, that interest groups will attempt to influence the outcome of these races. Certain groups have called for the appointment rather than the election of state judges, and the findings in this report arguably provide some support for that recommendation. But there has been little popular enthusiasm for this idea around the country.

However, even if one accepts the inherently "political" nature of state judicial elections, this report provides grounds for public concern about disproportionate influence by well-heeled special interest groups, conscious efforts to disguise or misrepresent the ideological or financial interests being served by certain advocacy efforts, and misleading reports and rhetorical attacks on judicial candidates. All of these problems are compounded by the relatively low public visibility of state judicial elections.

One of the most striking features of recent state judicial elections is the extent to which pro-business advocacy groups and their allies are using the label "judicial activist" to criticize judicial candidates whom they oppose on ideological grounds. The label "activist" is being consistently attached to judges whose votes tend to disfavor business interests, regardless of whether the label accurately describes the judges' actual method of decision-making. From all appearances, the rhetoric about "judicial activism" has been selected simply because it is believed to convey a negative impression about a candidate. Hopefully one service provided by this report will be to encourage the media and the general public to look beyond the misleading rhetoric that has dominated state judicial elections.

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/gelpi/sjelect/

[redqueen]

3. Truly frightening.

These people are transparently anti-family and only pro-business.

[atommom]

4. But they've joined forces with people who think they're pro-family.

Strange bedfellows indeed...

[Zerex71]

5. Do ones with low ratings go on a hit list?

I'm sure the Repukes would love that.

It's time to throw the Repukes out of this country bodily. I know just the place for them -- sunny Mosul.

[atommom]

6. I'm sure they do. At the very least, their names will be dragged

through the mud.