Our own Senator Lyle Hillyard was in attendance at a recent American Bar Association summit discussing loss of independence of national and state judges. He writes:
The main concern was about the cost of hotly contested judicial races, both partisan and non-partisan. The spiraling costs and the source of this money astound me. In a recent race for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court, the total spent by the two candidates was $9.3 M.The second concern was about the negative political attacks on nominees. We have seen this in the past and I am sure that we will see it in the future. Most candidates avoid answering what they consider “political” questions and unless someone has a history as either a judge or an elected official, it is hard to guess how they will decide specific issues. That has become the focus of many federal and state judicial confirmation proceedings. The Utah Constitution forbids “partisan political” considerations and again the issue in Utah has never been a political issue when a candidate has been review by the nominating committee, the Governor, or the Senate.
For perspective: $9.3 million exceeds, by far, the total spent by all candidates in Utah’s 2008 federal delegation races.
Read the rest of Hillyard’s post @ The Senate Site.
From the headline, I thought this was a punch line. Actually, I think it still is.