Progressive Reform and the Decline of Democratic Accountability: The Popular Election of State Supreme Court Judges, 1850-1920

Author:

Hall Kermit L.

Abstract

This essay probes the relationship among different kinds of political cultures, the conduct of judicial elections, and the extent of dissent on the state supreme courts of California, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas from 1850 to 1920. The introduction at the turn of the twentieth century of Progressive election reforms—most notably the secret ballot, the direct party primary, and the nonpartisan ballot—reduced levels of turnout in judicial contests and increased roll-off from major statewide political to judicial elections. These reforms made judicial elections the tail on the electoral kite and denied the public its best means of regulating judicial policy making. Yet these changes in the electorate's behavior were seemingly unrelated to variations in the rate of dissent in these four state courts, whose judges apparently viewed popular partisan election as more a potential than a real threat to their independence.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Reference105 articles.

1. Wasby, supra note 33, at 144–46. On the issue in the nineteenth century see Hall, supra note 2, at 348–50; and id., Constitutional Machinery and Judicial Selection: The Social Origins and Careers of Midwestern State Appellate Court Judges, 1861–1899, in Gerard W. Gawalt, ed., The New High Priests: Bench and Bar at the Turn of the Century (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, forthcoming 1984).

2. Winters, supra note 40.

3. Baldwin, supra note 8, at 331–34.

4. Ohio Const. of 1851, art. 5, § 7.

5. States did select different internal formats for the new Australian ballot. Some states, including California and Tennessee, adopted the office-bloc or “blanket ballot” format that listed candidates names under specific offices without regard to party affiliation. Other states, including Ohio and Texas, adopted the party-column format, which resembled a consolidation of the old party-strips placed side by side on the same sheet. See ch. 188, 1889 Tenn. Acts; 1891 Cal. Laws 165; 1891 Ohio Laws 458; ch. 11, 190s Tex. Laws.

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