{"id":7608,"date":"2009-10-22T07:41:57","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T12:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=7608"},"modified":"2009-10-22T10:10:07","modified_gmt":"2009-10-22T15:10:07","slug":"merit-selection-amendment-introduced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/10\/merit-selection-amendment-introduced\/","title":{"rendered":"Merit Selection Amendment Introduced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, State Representative Mark Gottlieb <\/a>(R-Port Washington) announced that he is drafting a constitutional amendment <\/a>to replace Wisconsin’s current method of judicial elections with “merit selection.” Rep. Gottlieb is a former speaker pro tem of the Assembly, and he is widely regarded as one of the top policy gurus within the Republican caucus.<\/p>\n

Currently, the legislature is seriously considering public financing
\nof judicial elections (a topic on which Prof. Esenberg has written
\nextensively<\/a>).\u00a0 Rep. Gottlieb is offering his amendment as an alternative to public financing as it comes to the floor in the near future. Rep. Fred Kessler (D-Milwaukee) offered his own judicial selection amendment earlier this session<\/a>. Both Gottlieb and Kessler differ from the typical “Missouri Plan<\/a>” merit selection system. Under Kessler’s plan, the governor would appoint a justice with the “advice and consent” of a majority of the State Senate for a ten-year term. As that term is coming up for expiration, a justice who wishes to continue may do so unless at least thirteen senators reject the proposed renewal. Under Gottlieb’s plan, the governor must select his nominee from current circuit court and appellate judges who have served at least eight years on the bench. The nominee would then need to be confirmed to the ten-year term by a twenty-vote (3\/5) majority in the state senate.\u00a0 At the end of the ten-year term, and each subsequent ten-year term he or she desires, the justice would have to run in a retention election.\u00a0 Neither the Kessler nor the Gottlieb plan would change judicial selection for the court of appeals or circuit courts.<\/p>\n

Let’s start by stating what’s good about both of these proposals. <\/p>\n

First, they’re constitutional amendments. In some states, it has been argued <\/a>that a “retention election” fulfills a constitutional requirement to elect justices, and therefore a merit selection system may replace traditional contested elections by statute.\u00a0 As a recent article in <\/a>State Court Docket Watch<\/a> <\/em>(disclosure: I am employed by The Federalist Society, publisher of SCDW<\/em>) points out, the history of efforts to change judicial selection in Wisconsin is that they have all been proposed amendments. Thus, if this change is to be made, it should be done by constitutional amendment, and these proposals recognize that reality.<\/p>\n

Second, both of these proposals reject a flawed, elite\/insider commission system in favor of a more politically accountable gubernatorial appointment model (although still less politically accountable than direct contested election by the people).<\/p>\n

My own sense of the lay of the political land is that while the
\nGottlieb and Kessler amendments are both thoughtful proposals to
\nchange judicial selection, and have the added benefit of being free,
\nthe major support for reform currently lines up behind public
\nfinancing. The Court endorsed it in a public letter last year<\/a>, the major election reform groups are behind it, the various legislative committees are moving on it, and it can be done now by statute. Of course, there’s no guarantee it will be enacted, and even if it is, that it will work (I personally am sympathetic to many of the arguments that I expect will be made in Prof. Esenberg’s forthcoming HJLPP<\/em> article<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In related news, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin will consider similar
\nquestions next week when\u00a0it takes up the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce<\/a>, Wisconsin Realtors Association<\/a>, and Wisconsin League of Women Voters<\/a>\u00a0petitions for a rule regarding campaign contributions and judicial recusal. We’ll see many of these same issues aired in those briefs and discussions, and I’d be interested if any of the professors, either
\nthe con law folks or the legal ethics folks, would blog on those three
\npetitions. Additionally, readers who are interested in these questions
\nshould plan to attend Plenary Panel 1 at the upcoming MULS Conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, State Representative Mark Gottlieb (R-Port Washington) announced that he is drafting a constitutional amendment to replace Wisconsin’s current method of judicial elections with “merit selection.” Rep. Gottlieb is a former speaker pro tem of the Assembly, and he is widely regarded as one of the top policy gurus within the Republican caucus. Currently, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-wisconsin-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}