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74 Judicature 271 (1990-1991)
Awareness of Trial Court Judges

handle is hein.journals/judica74 and id is 273 raw text is: Awareness of trial court judges As shown by a recent study in Texas, judges have little name or office recognition. Such lack of voter awareness makes the objective of judicial accountability problematic. by Anthony Champagne and Greg Thielemann C onventional wisdom, sup- ported by some empirical work, suggests that voters tend to be unaware of the judges they elect.' As a result, in partisan elec- tion jurisdictions, voters may rely on cues such as political party affiliation or name recognition in casting their votes for judicial candidates.' It is largely understood in the voting literature that . Klots, The Selection of Judges and the Short Ballot, 38 J. AM. JUD. Soc'Y. 134 (1955). Low levels of voting participation injudicial elections provide indirect support for the claim that voters lack awareness of judicial candidates. Numerous scho- lars have reported relatively low levels of judicial voting participation, including Jacobs, Judicial Insulation-Elections, Direct Participation, and Public Attention to the Courts in Wisconsin. 1966 Wis. L. REV. 801 (1966); Ladinsky and Silver, Popu- lar Democracy and Judicial Independence: Electo- rate and Elite Reactions to Two Wisconsin Su- preme Court Elections, 1967 Wis. L. REV. 128 (1967); and Barber, Ohio Judicial Elections- Nonpartisan Premises with Partisan Results, 32 OHIo ST. L. J. 762 (1971). Low levels of public awareness of appointed justices have also been reported. See, Bennack, The Public, the Media and the Judicial System: A National Survey on Citizens' Awareness, 7 ST. CT. J. 4 (1983). However, voter awareness of judges can be greatly increased by information pamphlets. See, Sheldon c Lovich, Knowledge and Judicial Voting: The Oregon and Washington Experience, 67 JUDICATURE 235 (1983). Mixed results on awareness of Ohio Supreme Court candidates has been reported by Baum with very high awareness of the controversial Ohio Chief Jus- tice race in 1986. See Baum, Voters' Information in Judicial Elections: The 1986 Contests for the Ohio Supreme Court, 77 Ky. L. J. 645 at 664-67 (1988-89). 2. Champagne, The Selection and Retention of Judges in Texas, 40 S.W.L.J. 53, 95-99 (1986); Dubois, The Significance of Voting Cues in State Supreme Court Elections, 13 L. & Soc'y. REV. 757 at 768-70 (1979). 3. Baum, supra n. 1, at 647-650. 4. Bedicheck & Tannahill, PUBLIC PoLICY IN TEXAS 258 (1986). 5. In states with established two-party systems, party can provide a cue to the ideology of judicial candidates. See, for example, Dubois, FROM BALLOT TO BENCH: JUDICIAL ELECTIONS AND THE QUEST FOR ACCOUNTABILITY (1980). For the weakness of party as an ideological predictor in Texas, see, Dyer, Ved- litz & Hill, New Voters, Switchers, and Political Party Realignment in Texas, 41 W.P.Q. 155, 160 (1988). 6. Abromowitz, Name Familiarity, Reputation, and the Incumbency Effect in a Congressional Elec- tion, 28 W.P.Q. 668 (1975); Jacobson, THE POLITICS OF CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIoNs (1987); Mann, Public Awareness of Congressional Candidates in Niemi and Weisberg, CONTROVERSIES IN VOTING BEHAVIOR (2d. ed.) 251 (1984). the further down the ballot a race is, the less widespread the interest. As a result, fewer people vote in these races, and those who do are more likely to rely on the simple cues of party and the sound of the name. This phenomenon has led to pointed questions about the wisdom of the election process in down-ticket races, including judicial contests which are always found down on the ballot. As a result, proponents of merit selection argue that these voters are uninterested and/or uninformed, and that merit selec- tion would offer a better judiciary. Elec- tion supporters, on the other hand, argue that greater efforts should be undertaken to inform voters.3 This issue has been prominent in Texas for some time. The wisdom of the Texas judicial election voter first fell under intense scrutiny with the election of Don Yarbrough to the Texas Supreme Court in 1976. This was a case where name recognition, albeit incorrect name recognition, led to a 290,000 vote plural- ity for a candidate who claimed that he took his instructions from God. Yar- brough defeated an established judge with bar association endorsements.4 Partly as a result of this case, and a seem- ing pattern of voter unawareness of judi- cial candidates, merit selection of Texas judges has received some momentum in recent years. In Texas, a central point in the debate over merit selection versus partisan elec- tion has been that judges are not known by voters, and therefore voters are unin- formed in casting their ballots. The lack of awareness, it is argued, makes the objective of judicial accountability a questionable one. If voters do not know judges, it is argued, they cannot remove bad ones. Additionally, in a state like Texas where there is not a long-standing tradition of a two-party system, party does not clearly delineate judicial ideol- ogies as it would in more traditional two-party systems.5 The literature sug- gests that name recognition is an impor- tant part of voters' considerations, but much of the literature on the subject of name recognition is from congressional voting research which concludes that name recognition is important because it is at the core of incumbency. These congressional races, however, get con- siderably more attention than judicial races and are not subject to the same fade in voter awareness.6 The literature The literature on judicial voting is sketchy at best, particularly in Texas. To date there have only been two published studies of voter awareness of judges and judicial candidates in Texas. One study was done during the 1976 general elec- tion in Lubbock. It was based on polling place exit interviews and was at a time when Texas judicial races tended to be noncompetitive. Only 14.5 per cent of the Lubbock sample could recall the name of one state supreme court or court of criminal appeals candidate, compared to 43.7 per cent who could do so for one senator and 50.7 per cent who could recall a U.S. House of Representatives candidate. Only 2.5 per cent could name county court candidates and only 4.9 per cent could name district court candidates. Most interestingly, Don Yarbrough was pitted against two write-in candi- dates in the general election. He had a Democratic primary opponent, Charles Barrow, who was the overwhelming choice of the state bar's preferential poll. Prior to or at the time of his election, Yarbrough was the target of at least 15 law suits. Two weeks before the general election, he was the subject of a disbar- ment suit, which alleged law violations and professional misconduct. Media at- tention for this race was very high. Nevertheless, 75.2 per cent of the sample of voters were unaware of the Yarbrough controversy. All together, 85.8 per cent of the sample could not recall the name of

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