Minnesota Court Reform

Reforms

Get Politics out of Judge Selection
[This is a digest of the chapter in the book]
Judges will be appointed to office under the proposed new process. New judges no longer would be elected to office.

A selection committee consisting of upright citizens who do not hold elective office or work for a politician will select candidates for district judge. There will be a selection committee for each of the ten judicial districts.

A state council will nominate judges for the Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. Each council will consist of civic leaders, educators, businesspersons, clergy and others as members. Lawyers and judges can be members of these councils, but their number will be limited.

For each judge vacancy in a district, that district council will submit a list of three candidates to the governor who can select the new judge only from that list. Although all new judges would be appointed, each would have to face the voters once every four years in an election to determine if he/she should continue in office. Prior to each such election, a report on the performance of the judge would be widely published in the judicial district involved so each voter can make an informed decision. The proposed process is a version of the Missouri Plan, which was the first plan implemented to choose judges on merit as much as possible instead of political connections. Sixteen states have adopted similar plans.

Publish Report Cards on Judges at Re-Election Time
[This is a digest of the chapter in the book]
An independent, nonpartisan commission, the Judicial Evaluation Commission ("Commission") will conduct performance evaluations of judges annually. To assure independence, the commission would not be part of the judicial branch of state government. The Commission will: (1) evaluate the performance of each state court judge once each year, and (2) publish a report on the performance of each judge who seeks re-election. The report will be widely published within the district of each judge who seeks re-election and will be distributed to registered voters. Evaluation of district court judges, court referees, and other judicial officials will be based on surveys of lawyers and people who were in lawsuits or court hearings, information on how many times the judge was reversed by a higher court, review of some of the judge's opinions, reports received by the Commission from people and lawyers, and other factors established by law or by the Commission. Evaluation of appeals court judges could be based on surveys of lawyers, legislators and the general public and reports received by the Commission from people and lawyers. The report issued on each judge who is seeking re-election will summarize the Commission's information on and evaluation of that judge and could recommend re-election or defeat.

Reform Campaign Finance for Judges
[This is a digest of the chapter in the book]
Judge re-election campaigns should be publicly funded as they are in the state of North Carolina. Currently, Wisconsin, Illinois and New Mexico are considering such a law.

To run in the general election, a candidate for judge would have to receive 5% or more of the vote in the primary. A candidate could accept campaign contributions for the primary race up to $50 per person. The balance remaining in the campaign account after the primary would be considered part of the public grant and the public grant would be reduced by that balance.

Each candidate who qualifies for the general election would receive a public grant if he/she agrees to certain terms. The candidate must agree not to accept any campaign contribution for the general election and must agree to a spending limit. With respect to judges and candidates who decline to accept public funding in favor of getting campaign contributions, the law would provide that members of law firms, lawyers and others who contribute to a judge's election or re-election would not be allowed to appear before that judge in court for four years.

Judge elections would be nonpartisan as in municipal elections. All judge candidates who receive 5% of the vote in the primary would be eligible to run in the general election.

Public financing of judge elections will not be needed if Minnesota adopts a plan to appoint judges on the basis of merit as proposed in Chapter 12, Part III. In the meantime, the proposed plan gives incumbent judges the means to avoid selling justice for campaign contributions.

Other Reforms?
Other reforms that can improve our court and legal system are proposed and discussed in our website: www.mncourtreform.org/. Please let us know what you think of these additional reforms and what reforms you think would help. Write to us at: dalenathan@usfamily.net.

Select another reform to read about: