Article III Justices- most justices at the federal level- are appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and serve for as long as they please with very few exceptions. This is done, in part, to ensure that they are independent of the political process. At the state level, however, things work differently. Judicial elections may be held to ensure accountability to the people. What do these differences mean for state and federal judiciaries?
Amy Steigerwalt of Georgia State University shows us the way.
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript was generated using an automated transcription service, and may contain typographical errors.
Archival: [00:00:01] After careful reflection, I am proud to nominate for associate justice of the Supreme Court, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for [00:00:10] the District of Columbia.
[00:00:11] Also, a contest of voters in Brooklyn will be weighing in on a very important one. It's for Surrogate's Court. The June 9th election serves as the general election for candidates for West [00:00:20] Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and inspiring woman who I believe will make a great justice, Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:35] You're [00:00:30] listening to Civics 101, I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:38] I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:39] Today, we are looking [00:00:40] into the very different ways that a justice gets on the bench at the state and federal level in the United States appointment and election.
Amy Steigerwalt: [00:00:48] Article III judges [00:00:50] follow the same process that other top officials do in the United States government.
[00:00:56] They are nominated by the president, by and with the advice [00:01:00] and consent of the Senate.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:01] This is Amy Steigerwalt, professor of political science at Georgia State University. She's been walking us through the judiciary lately.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:08] And when Amy says Article [00:01:10] III judges, we're talking about Article III of the Constitution. That's the article that says there shall be a Supreme Court. Congress can also make inferior courts and justices hold [00:01:20] office during good behavior, which is indefinitely in Congress has indeed established inferior federal courts.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:26] In the U.S. there are courts of appeals district courts [00:01:30] and there's a court of international trade. All told, there are currently in twenty, twenty eight hundred and seventy Article III judgeships. When someone [00:01:40] dies or retires, the president gets to appoint someone to fill that seat.
Amy Steigerwalt: [00:01:44] And the Senate confirms and the reason why they were given that they use this appointment process as well [00:01:50] as in this part of super important life tenure, that they serve for good behavior, cannot be removed from office involuntarily [00:02:00] except through either impeachment or death.
Nick Capodice: [00:02:03] I know the idea here is to have judicial independence, to have justices who won't be swayed by politics over the course of their career because [00:02:10] they don't have to appeal to the political landscape, like they don't have to prove themselves to parties or a voter. But you mentioned elections. So are there some judges in the country who have [00:02:20] to campaign?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:21] Yeah, starting in the 60s, 70s and 80s, states began to consider judicial elections in large part because they felt like there was simply no check on the justices [00:02:30] that had been appointed, that they were too disconnected from the people.
[00:02:34] There was no accountability.
[00:02:36] There was no ability to say you are doing a bad job [00:02:40] and therefore we want to get you out of office.
[00:02:43] And plenty of states have some form of judicial appointment for state courts, whether it's the governor appointing or a commission [00:02:50] or some combination of both, but plenty. Others hold traditional elections.
[00:02:55] There are states that just have competitive [00:03:00] judicial elections for their judges.
[00:03:03] Sometimes those are nonpartisan elections and sometimes they're partisan.
[00:03:08] There's also a special kind of election [00:03:10] that crops up in states that have an appointment process. This is called a retention election. A justice is appointed and then after some specified period of time, there's [00:03:20] a vote and that incumbent judge either gets to stay or is booted off.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:24] So with many states having elections where you vote for judges, have there been any moves to change how [00:03:30] things are done? And the Article three level?
Amy Steigerwalt: [00:03:32] The issue is that almost everyone agrees that it would take a constitutional amendment. And that, of course, is a really high bar. [00:03:40] And so the sort of leading advocates of changes or less about judicial elections and more about [00:03:50] either terms, sometimes it's about age limits or removal. But I would say probably the most prominent one that I've seen is actually less about switching to an election [00:04:00] system and more about putting in term limits. The people who would make the final determination on that would be, of course, the justices whose potential [00:04:10] seats would be in jeopardy.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:12] So will our federal justices ever be willing to make themselves less powerful if we ever get that far? You're at least guaranteed a Civics [00:04:20] 101 episode on it.
[00:04:21] If you have questions about government and politics, ask us by clicking the button at the top of our homepage at civics101podcast.org.
