One of the loudest arguments in favor of continuing Judicial Conventions and not having Primaries choose candidates for State Supreme Court Justice has to do with money. At Wednesday’s hearing before the State Assembly Judiciary Committee, witnesses and Assembly members warned that Primaries would mean that judgeships would go to the highest bidder and that big money would corrupt the justice system. Million dollar campaigns have been predicted.
But is that a legitimate fear?
Since other elected judges are selected through Primaries, shouldn’t we look at what candidates for these positions spend on campaigns?
The most recent Primary is a large district was this year’s Democratic Primary election for Civil Court in Brooklyn. The race was countywide. Brooklyn has @850,000 registered Democrats, which was the universe the candidates had to appeal. That number is higher than the total number of registered Democrats or registered Republicans in ANY of the State Supreme Court districts in New York State. save one. The only bigger district is the one that comprise Brooklyn and Staten Island, which has @950,000 registered Democrats. Therefore, it’s fair to say that a campaign in any of the 11 smaller Supreme Court districts should not have to cost more than was spent in this year’s Civil Court Primary.
Six candidates ran in the Civil Court Primary, with two elected. According to the post Primary reports filed with the State Board of Elections, the winning candidates spent $21,593.52 and $21,192.13 respectively. Both were outspent by there of their opponents. Two of the losing candidates spent just a small amount more than the winners and one of the losers spent $99,331.69. The 6th candidate’s post primary report is not on the BOE website.
So what does that tell us?
Well one thing is that the judgeship didn’t go to the highest bidder.
Now it’s true, that Assemblyman Vito Lopez and the Brooklyn County Organization backed the winners, which obviously helped them overcome their opponent’s money.. But so what? If there was not a Primary but there was instead a Judicial Convention in this instance, Vito’s choices would have won anyway.
What is also tells us is that candidates for judge, be it Civil or Supreme can win a Primary election despite being outspent by a lot. And it tells us that unless there is something that I’m not aware of that will make special interests with deep pockets suddenly interested in who become a New York State Supreme Court Justice (remember despite it’s name the State Supreme Court is not the highest court in New York) vast sums of money are unlikely to be spent on Supreme Court races.