In recent years, as the U.S. Supreme Court has limited its protections of the right to vote, some state courts have stepped in to fill the void. State judges have looked to their state constitutions—which are more explicit in conferring the right to vote—to provide relief from onerous election laws. And, in doing so, they have shown how these documents can be powerful tools to improve America’s democracy.
Forty-nine of the 50 state constitutions explicitly grant the right to vote to their citizens (Arizona is the only outlier), and just over half of them also provide further protection to the democratic process by requiring elections to be “free and equal” or “free and open.” Some state courts, such as in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Arkansas—and most recently Delaware—have analyzed their state constitutions in an increasingly expansive way, going beyond federal law to protect voting rights.
Yet other state courts—such as in Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Indiana—have ruled that their constitutions are merely coextensive with the U.S. Constitution, leading them to apply the more limited federal protection with equal force to the state constitution. That is, these courts have simply followed the current restrictive voting-rights rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, even though their state constitutions textually and explicitly provide more protection. This “lockstep” methodology strips the state constitutions of any independent meaning—and it allows courts to uphold election rules that negatively impact voters.
- Huffington Post: Money Flooding State Court Elections Threatens the Promise of Equal Justice.
Special interest money is flooding into our state Supreme Court elections, gravely threatening the impartial justice that our Constitution promises -- and raising troubling questions about whether courtroom decisions are for sale.
This fast-growing trend in American politics, spurred in part by the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling in 2010, puts our system of justice at risk. When judges are pressured to answer to deep-pocketed special interests, disillusioned citizens may perceive them as little more than politicians in robes.
And when special interest groups air grisly TV ads accusing judges of being soft on crime or attacking them for decisions in controversial cases, those judges may find themselves especially vulnerable to election pressure.
Consider the startling transformation of state Supreme Court elections in recent years. Traditionally sleepy and low-cost affairs, these high court elections have become politicized, expensive, and dominated by powerful special interests.
