Litigation

For ?Frightening Times,? Truly ?Scary? Judicial Ads

By Peter Hardin

UPDATE: In a new attack ad, Michigan Democrats say Republican Justice Robert Young agreed that corporations can spend millions “to elect judges like himself who rule in their favor.”

They are slimy. They are scary. They are creepy and truly frightening, and it’s just a coincidence they’re infecting our airwaves at Halloween.

This is how election law scholar Rick Hasen and writer Dahlia Lithwick characterize the most chilling judicial election ads of the current campaign in a Slate essay. They  build on Justice at Stake’s “path-breaking” report about soaring campaign expenditures in the past decade and fast-forward to the the ominous ads on the airwaves today. The authors lament:

“In short, these are distinctly frightening times?especially for those of us who believe judicial elections should be different from other elections and that it is important to maintain both the appearance and actuality of impartial justice.”

In their attention-grabbing essay “Evil Men in Black Robes,” Hasen and Lithwick announce their judicial campaign ad hall of shame, that is, five of the scariest negative ads of the season that they picked from TV, radio, the Internet, plus a YouTube parody about the Iowa Supreme Court justices whose decision legalized same-sex marriage.

That’s not all–the authors launch a new national competition to pick the very scariest of these election ads. Here are just a couple of the choices: “Judges Who Take Oil Money and Rub It All Over Local Waterfowl,” an Internet ad by Michigan Democrats that attacked Republican Justice Robert Young Jr.; and “Attack of the Killer, er, Killers,” a TV ad assailing Illinois Justice Thomas Kilbride, who is facing a difficult retention election.

Then there’s the parody about where critics fear the “slippery-slope” ruling of the Iowa Supreme Court might lead. Gavel Grab won’t give away the surprise ending, but instead will quote from the beginning of the Slate essay:

“If you’re a fan of The Exorcist and Carrie, if you like sex and violence and ominous music, you’ve come to the right place. Because we have gathered some of the most spine-chilling Halloween footage you will ever see?all produced in an effort to influence state judicial elections.”

You can check out plenty of startling election advertising on Justice at Stake’s Judicial Elections 2010 page, and you can learn more about the report cited by Hasen and Lithwick by clicking here for “The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2000-2009: Decade of Change.” It was co-authored by JAS, the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Institute on Money in State Politics and Hofstra law professor James Sample.

Full post as published by The Gavel on October 26, 2010 (boomark / email).