A recent Ohio Supreme Court ruling will allow judges to advertise their political leanings during the next election.
Prior to last month's ruling, judicial candidates were allowed to publicize their political affiliation during only the primary elections. The new ruling will allow candidates to use partisan labels throughout general elections, although ballots will remain nonpartisan.
Some experts fear this decision will undermine the judicial process by pressuring judges to make rulings that meet party approval.
In this third branch of government
judges are supposed to be fair and impartial. They're not supposed to be following a political agenda said Michael Solimine, a law professor at the University of Cincinnati. If a judge says 'I'm a Democrat' and another says 'I'm a Republican ' I don't know what that means for a judge who is supposed to be impartial. That seems to undermine the rule of law.
However, other experts say the ruling might not have a significant effect on future elections.
Despite the numerous mailings, television commercials, newspaper articles and editorials and campaign speeches, the process of advertising is an imperfect one, said Lawrence Baum, a political science professor at Ohio State University who specializes in judicial politics. Many voters still will have to guess about a candidate's political affiliation.
Democratic voters are more likely to vote for democratic candidates
Baum said. There is a correlation
but we can't tell exactly how many voters know a candidate's affiliation going into the voting booth.
And when people do not know which party judicial candidates belong to, many simply leave the section blank. This phenomenon is referred to as voter roll off Solimine said. In voter roll off, people vote for the major offices such as president, governor and state representative, but when voters get down to judges, if there is no name or party recognition, they don't vote.
Statistics from the Ohio Secretary of State's Web site about last November's election illustrate the problem of voter roll off. In Athens County, about 30,600 registered voters participated in the election, however only about 24,000, or about 78 percent, voted for either candidate in the District 4 Court of Appeals race.
Solimine said the ruling might lead to a more informed electorate and prevent the approximately 20 percent roll off in Ohio in future elections.
However, Baum said the new ruling would likely only help candidates in bigger counties, such as Cuyahoga or Franklin.
In small counties
voters know the candidates better and know their party affiliations
Baum said.
Ohio University political science professor John Gilliom said the ruling could be a helpful tool for voters.
Many American voters who rely on party identification as a quick way to identify candidates will now be able to use that as a way to vote for judicial candidates
he said.
The ruling also forces candidates to reveal possible political influences before they get to the courtroom, he said.
Ohio is at the top of the chart for heavily politicized judicial politics
he said. It's all a game of nudge-nudge
wink-wink in Ohio. This ruling is going to make it more public. One thing I like is it reveals the mistruth that judges are separate from politics. They're not; they're involved. They have political agendas and this will bring that out in the open.
