ALLEGHENY COLLEGE POLITICAL SCIENCE 610 SENIOR PROJECT Lyndsay Steinmetz A Perfect Storm: How Speech and Spending are Politicizing State Supreme Courts Department of Political Science April 11, 2011 Lyndsay Steinmetz A Perfect Storm: How Speech and Spending are Politicizing State Supreme Courts Submitted to the Department of Political Science of Allegheny College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts. I hereby recognize and pledge to fulfill my responsibilities as defined in the Honor Code and to maintain the integrity of both myself and the College community as a whole. ____________________________________ (NAME PRINTED HERE) ____________________________________ (HONOR CODE SIGNATURE) Approved by: ____________________________ (1st Reader‘s Name) ____________________________ (2nd Reader‘s Name) 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgments..........................................................................................................................3 An Introduction to Judicial Elections.............................................................................................4 Terms of Engagement.........................................................................................................6 The Evolution of Judicial Elections....................................................................................8 Changing Landscapes........................................................................................................11 Chapter 1: Through the Looking Glass, Three Case Studies.........................................................15 Big Spending, Supreme Consequences.............................................................................16 ―The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth…‖............................................21 Wedded Interests...............................................................................................................24 Aftershocks........................................................................................................................32 Chapter 2: The White Court Deregulates Campaign Speech.........................................................34 ―Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace‖.......................................................................34 Mum in Minnesota….........................................................................................................35 Supreme Court Strikes Down Minnesota‘s ―Announce‖ Clause......................................37 Concurring Opinions….....................................................................................................41 Dissenting Opinions...........................................................................................................43 Legal Analysis and Lingering Questions...........................................................................44 Side Effects May Include...................................................................................................46 Long-Term Consequences ................................................................................................50 Chapter 3: Buying Votes and Buying Decisions...........................................................................52 National Overview.............................................................................................................54 Reforms, Amendments and Surprise Rulings....................................................................56 2 Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm spends $1.3 million on a judicial candidate…..........58 Mileage May Vary.............................................................................................................61 Show Me the Money..........................................................................................................66 Independent Expenditures.................................................................................................68 Justice for Sale? ................................................................................................................71 Votes for Sale? ..................................................................................................................73 Bottom Line.......................................................................................................................74 Chapter 4: Today in the Courts, Competition and Reform............................................................76 Speaking............................................................................................................................76 Spending............................................................................................................................79 Competition… because it is a Race! .................................................................................81 Reformation.......................................................................................................................89 What‘s Ahead? ..................................................................................................................91 Conclusion: Objects in the Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear.........................................93 A Road Map.......................................................................................................................93 Detours...............................................................................................................................94 Recommended Navigation.................................................................................................95 Works Cited...................................................................................................................................98 Appendix A: State Supreme Court Election Data, 1999-2010....................................................110 Appendix B: State Decade Profiles, 1999-2010..........................................................................116 3 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my family for their support, confidence, and the opportunity for a wonderful education. I thank Professor Daniel Shea for his guidance and encouragement during this project‘s development. This project has been the most difficult challenge of my education thus far, and I appreciate every moment and note that you provided me with as I persevered onward. Thanks to Professor Brian Harward, for your advice, even outside of office hours. Thanks to Professor Robert Seddig, for the inspirational lectures about law and society. Thanks to Professor Stephanie Martin and Professor Tomas Nonnemacher, for trying to teach me statistical analysis. Special thanks go to Michaeline Shuman, for four years of mentoring and friendship. Finally, I must thank my friends who have supported me from the furthest corners of the globe, and especially Brett Bacon for his support and encouragement. 4 An Introduction to Judicial Elections ―There‘s no playbook for this.‖ Campaign director Brain Nemoir struggled to grasp the realities of the election outcome (Marley, Stein, & Bergquist, 2011). Two candidates in a statewide race had received $400,000 in public funding after agreeing to forego fundraising (Marley et al., 2011). Special-interest groups spent an additional $3.6 million, primarily on televised ads (Brennan Center, 2011). Voter turnout was 68% higher than expected based on past similar elections (Gilbert, 2011). Almost a full day after polls closed, 100% of the votes had been counted and the challenger emerged with a 0.013% margin of victory over the incumbent with over thirteen years of experience. When results were released, the state immediately began planning for a statewide recount, costing taxpayers up to $1 million (Marley et al., 2011). The election was not for a federal office, a governorship, or a seat on the state legislature. It was for a position on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a position now caught in a perfect storm of politicization. Leading up to Election Day, there were few indications that the 2011 Supreme Court race would become so heated. Only six weeks earlier, incumbent Justice David Prosser won the primary with 55% of the vote and challenger Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg came in second with 25% (Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, 2011). Based on past races, the state predicted 20% voter turnout, but approximately 1.5 million voters, 34%, made their way to the polls (Gilbert, 2011). In fact, voter turnout for this judicial election was comparable to the 2008 presidential primary, in which 1,524,360 voters participated (Wisconsin State Elections Board, 2008). Gilbert suggests another perspective for the significant voter turnout: ―the share of eligible voters who turned out in a spring judicial election in 5 Wisconsin equaled or exceeded the share of eligible voters who turned out in races for governor last fall in New York, Tennessee, Texas and Utah‖ (2011). With such a slim margin of victory, a statewide recount is likely to begin a week after the election (Marley et al., 2011). As a judicial race, different aspects of the election must be taken into account. First, challengers have won against incumbent Justices only five times since the creation of the Supreme Court in 1852 (Marley et al., 2011). Kloppenburg‘s possible victory is highly unusual. Second, as the race took place in the spring of an odd year, citizens were not voting for any kind of federal office, but rather demonstrated the specific interest in voting for