Michigan citizens rely on fair and impartial courts to make the ideal of "equal justice for all" a reality. Michigan citizens also see a threat to judicial impartiality posed by the influence of special interests.
The Michigan Independent Supreme Court Campaign (MISCC), started in northwestern Michigan, is a response to this threat and is itself an interest group: It represents the interests of individuals and families who have a stake in the fair administration of justice -- in other words, all of us.
The difference between MISCC and well-heeled special interest groups? MISCC does not support or oppose candidates to the Michigan Supreme Court. MISCC does not spend money on advertising designed to influence voters' decisions about which candidate to support. MISCC is a good, old-fashioned push-back against the wealth and influence of big business and big labor. MISCC calls for improvements to the way we elect our justices. These improvements will help protect the courts from political pressure and will help voters by requiring more disclosure about campaign contributors. We support:
•A system of voluntary public financing of Supreme Court elections;
•Requiring all contributors to all Supreme Court election advertising to be made public and,
•Requiring that justices disqualify themselves from cases when there is a perceived conflict of interest (when a litigant is a major campaign supporter, for instance). What's not to like?
Voluntary public funding means that taxpayers can choose to support a fund to pay for judicial elections so candidates won't have to turn to special interests to fund their campaigns. It means that candidates can choose to use this fund or not. The system of public financing in North Carolina has been very successful and can serve as a model for Michigan.
Timely disclosure of contributors to election advertising means that voters can find out who supports which candidate -- before going to the polls. Under current law, millions of dollars of "issue advertising" for judicial candidates go unreported. Modern technology makes it easy to provide such information to voters before an election.
We urge the Legislature to take the lead on these issues. Sen. Michelle McManus, R-Lake Leelanau, chair of the Senate Campaign and Election Oversight Committee, is in a position to stand up to special interests by moving legislation to protect the impartiality of our courts.
Those are the facts; for some fiction on this topic, try John Grisham's bestselling novel, "The Appeal," which describes how special interest money corrupts a Mississippi Supreme Court election. MISCC is sponsoring a discussion of Grisham's book and its relevance to the Michigan Supreme Court at Horizon Books in Traverse City at 7 p.m. June 19. Attorney Dan O'Neil will facilitate the discussion.
Are you ready to help protect Michigan's courts? Attend the discussion; visit www.miscc.org to learn more and to sign the online petition to legislators; tell your legislators and candidates for state office that our courts need to be free from political pressure; stand up for fair and impartial courts!
About the author: Anne Magoun, a Traverse City resident, is immediate past president of the League of Women Voters of Michigan, one of the founding organizations behind MISCC; she is a spokesperson for MISCC. She is the recipient of the Grand Traverse Bar Association's Liberty Bell Award and the ACLU's Unsung Hero Award for Social Justice.
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