We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Partisanship, Interest Groups, and Attack Advertising in the Post-White Era, or Why Nonpartisan Judicial Elections Really Do Stink.
- Authors
Hall, Melinda Gann
- Abstract
This Essay utilizes the results of several decades of empirical political science research on state supreme court elections to argue that the practice of electing justices on nonpartisan ballots should be abandoned. Relying on discussions of extant research as well as new evidence recently generated about the impact of televised attack advertising on justices seeking reelection, I suggest that the promise of nonpartisan elections has not been fulfilled. Instead, among other consequences, nonpartisan races in which justices are seeking reelection are more likely to involve derisive advertising than are partisan elections on a race-by-race basis, attract higher proportions of attack airings sponsored by interest groups, and facilitate the ability of televised campaign negativity to influence the election returns. The primary new evidence is drawn from my latest book, Attacking Judges: How Campaign Advertising Influences State Supreme Court Elections. Taken together, the sizable body of empirical scholarship on state supreme court elections shows that nonpartisan elections are not an effective device for staffing the state court bench.
- Subjects
UNITED States; JUDICIAL elections; PARTISANSHIP; UNITED States appellate courts; REPUBLICAN Party of Minnesota v. White (Supreme Court case); NONPARTISAN elections; SOCIAL influence; TELEVISION advertising; HISTORY; U.S. states; POLITICAL advertising
- Publication
Journal of Law & Politics, 2016, Vol 31, Issue 4, p429
- ISSN
0749-2227
- Publication type
Essay