President Trump’s recent nomination of Joan Larsen to a federal appeals court fills a growing judicial swamp that is fed by big-spender interest groups. In 2016, Justice Larsen won election to the Michigan supreme court. Michigan, like Illinois, has partisan elections for judges. A judge appears as a Republican or Democrat on the ballot. This implies that there is a Republican and Democratic justice system—and the two differ. Framers of the Constitution worried about courts that were politically motivated.
According to her 2017 campaign report, Justice Larsen received $579,171 in 2016. She received contributions of $5,000 or more from Blue Cross Blue Shield, Health PAC [an anonymous name], Michigan Realtors, Michigan Farm Bureau, and more.
What’s wrong with this picture? These groups gave money to buy influence for cases that are important to them. Americans already have a branch of government that takes donations to advance the interests of businesses, unions, and other groups. It’s called the legislature. The problem is that the Michigan supreme court is often bought by special interests.
Illinois suffers from the same problem, only more, because Illinois supreme court elections attract millions of dollars. These donations have real effects on major rulings. Our high court has a Democratic majority. Voting along party lines, this court turned back a re-mapping initiative that was popular with citizens. If Democrats voted with Republicans, they would have put Speaker Madigan’s ironclad map at risk. Not to be outdone in the influence department, Republican justices threw out a billion judgment against an insurance company that defrauded policy holders by failing to tell customers that it only paid for second-quality parts. The current chief justice, a Republican, received more than $2 million for his campaign in 2014.
Our community has its own version of a judicial swamp, a local radio show where two judges are asked friendly questions that have more to do with their ideology than the law. One guest is Judge Michael McCuskey. When he recently retired as a federal judge, he did so at full salary—close to $200,000 per year. A short time later, he was seated for a state judgeship in Illinois, making him about $190,000.
This is legal. But it amounts to double dipping at a time when taxpayers are stretched thin. Altogether, taxpayers are paying Judge McCuskey about $400,000 per year. The only reason this amount cannot be confirmed is that Illinois judges are not required to disclose the value of their financial interests.
I know this because of my research on judicial ethics. If taxpayers want to see the annual financial disclosures by state judges, they must appear in person. To get information for Judge McCuskey, I drove to the Illinois Supreme Court Building in Springfield; went through screening; presented my driver’s license; filled out a multi-page form; explained my reason for this request; and paid for copies in exact change. That’s a lot of hoops to jump through to get some basic information about our judges. What are they hiding?
We might want to know if our elected judges have an interest related to our litigation, such as investments in insurance companies. The insurance industry likes Illinois Republican justices, a lot. They like Donald Trump’s nominee from Michigan, too. It is fair to ask, however, whether our elected judges own stock in insurance companies. Why aren’t these records available online?
The answer is that our courts have become swampy. Interest groups that spend heavily are transforming our courts into shadow legislatures, and judges into politicians in black robes. We need strict spending limits on state judicial elections; and we deserve transparency about our judges’ financial interests.
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