Following the SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage, presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz is calling on retention elections for Supreme Court justices. I’m pretty certain that Cruz knows that it has zero chance of approval be 2/3 of the states, making it an easy bullet point to add to the platform.
Cruz knows a bit about the Supreme Court, having served as a clerk to William Renhquist, and having argued nine cases before the Court while attorney general of the Lone State state. And, hailing from Texas, he’s quite familiar with judicial elections–judges from county judge to the Texas Supreme Court run. However, unlike California where judges must stand for “retention” elections, Texas judges are elected in partisan elections.
I don’t care for California’s retention elections. California voters routinely are asked to vote to retain judges about whom they have no knowledge. Judges are retained unless their mug is seen in the crime section of the paper, or when they have an ethnic-sounding name and lose to a sometimes attorney bagel shop owner.
The only consequential judicial retention defeat in my lifetime was the 1986 election that removed Rose Bird, Joseph Grodin, and Cruz Reynoso (appointees of Jerry Brown) from the Supreme Court of California, ostensibly about the death penalty, but equally about labor, firearms, and general business regulation.
I frequently disagree with decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. However, I read decisions and understand the rationale used by the majority. Anyone with a legal education can understand, whether they agree or not, the Court’s five-justice majority in the same-sex marriage case. As I wrote on Friday, once the door opened with same-sex marriage in one state, the Equal Protection clause became a problem for same-sex marriage opponents. Even if applying a “rational basis” review of the differentiation between the treatment of heterosexual and homosexual couples, the burden was high.
That said, not many voters understand the levels of scrutiny to be applied in such cases. Voters are fueled by passion for their own political affinity. The last place our judicial system should be is within the election system. We have an impeachment process for those that abuse their office. Having Supreme Court justices raising money from interests that may be before them is an awful idea.
Ted Cruz, you know better.