Americans know judges and courts are subject to unjust bias and that the problem is getting worse.
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Partisan Justice
How Campaign Money Politicizes Judicial Decisionmaking in Election Cases
by Joanna Shepherd and Michael S. Kang
Summary
The upward spiral of big money fundraising and aggressive politics in state judicial elections pressures judges to become partisan actors who favor their own party in deciding election disputes.
Bush v. Gore is by far the most famous of this kind of election case, but state courts decide many similar cases every year, regularly determining who wields power at the state and local level. State judges are under enormous political pressure to join in party-based fundraising and campaign networks to survive what has become a fiercely competitive electoral environment. Analyzing a new dataset of cases from 2005 to 2014, this study finds that judicial decisions are systematically biased by these types of campaign finance and re-election influences to help their party’s candidates win office and favor their party’s interests in election disputes.
Principal Findings
- Judges favor litigants from their own party in head-to-head cases.
- Campaign finance exacerbates partisan behavior.
- Judges are less likely to be partisan when they no longer need to run for office.
- The problem of partisan decision making is arguably getting worse over time.