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Friday, October 20, 2006
State’s high court shouldn’t be a mystery
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A measure of how successful judges and lawyers have been in seizing the judiciary from Georgia voters is reflected in a poll released Friday that asked 500 likely voters their impressions of the state’s most powerful court.
Buckle up. This civics class is in for a rough ride.
“A stunning 71 percent said they didn’t know or had no answer,” said Shelley West, project director at The Polling Company in Washington, which conducted the survey Oct. 11-13 for the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal organization.
When asked to volunteer any impression about the high court or any decision it has rendered, 2 percent mentioned voter ID and 1 percent each mentioned abortion, gay marriage, immigration, sex offenders and eminent domain — most of which are pure guesses.
Only 17 percent of Georgians know how many justices (seven) sit on the Georgia Supreme Court. Twenty-seven percent guessed fewer, with five the most popular response and 25 percent guessed more than seven, with nine the most popular guess. The U.S. Supreme Court does have nine. Twenty-nine percent refused even to guess at a number.
The “stunning” lack of familiarity with the most powerful court in the state is the consequence of decades of deceit. While the Georgia Constitution provides for election of judges, voters almost never have first choice. That’s because traditionally, judges resign as they approach the end of their terms, enabling the governor to choose their successor. If they resign within six months of an election, the new appointees are not required to stand for election until the next election cycle, more than two years away.
The gentlemen’s agreement among lawyers — a gentlemen’s agreement based on hard-knocks practicality— is that nobody opposes an incumbent. When they do, the establishment bar rallies ‘round. And who can blame lawyers? It’s their livelihood.
That system, a corruption of the plain requirement of the state constitution, is so pervasive that most Georgians have forgotten, or never knew, that the right to pick judges belongs to them. In the poll released Friday, 42 percent guessed that governors appoint justices to the Supreme Court. Another 12 percent had no idea. Only 41 percent knew that voters elect them.
There exists this year a serious challenge to a sitting judge. Mike Wiggins of Atlanta, who served in the Bush administration as deputy associate attorney general, is challenging incumbent Justice Carol Hunstein of Decatur, a 14-year veteran. It’s the choice voters should have routinely.
Wiggins, who graduated first in his class at the University of Georgia School of Law, has all the credentials needed to serve on the Georgia Supreme Court. While serving in the U.S. Department of Justice, he oversaw the civil division and the civil rights division. He served, too, as principal deputy general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, the No. 2 legal officer in a department of 1,400 lawyers.
By every measure it’s a top-of-the-line choice for voters in a race that would rank, with the attorney general’s race, as second in importance to the governor’s race. And yet, a legitimate contest is regarded as the arrival of the Visigoths.
Both sides here are well financed. In addition, a national business coalition concerned about what the Manhattan Institute think tank calls the “litigation industry,” is airing television commercials, independent of Wiggins, that raise the race’s profile.
The fact that an actual judicial race involving two candidates with bases of support alarms those who are unaccustomed to actual campaigns has drawn the hand-wringers, including Bill Bozarth, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, who advocates public funding for statewide elections. Others express alarm that business would take an interest in judicial elections, as though its interest in the leanings of courts with the power to bankrupt it is illegitimate.
Clearly, Georgia needs higher-profile judicial campaigns to educate voters about the high court and their right to elect judges. In the absence of full and fair judicial contests, judges should be nominated by the two political parties. Public financing, as Bozarth suggests, is another guarantee that the incumbent wins.
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