Party labels hard to avoid
Judge races flirt with partisanship
Titan Barksdale, Staff Writer
Officially, judicial elections in North Carolina are nonpartisan.
Why, then, has Associate Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds Jr. encouraged Republican voters to re-elect him to maintain a GOP presence on the bench?
And why was his opponent, Wake Forest University law professor Suzanne Reynolds, campaigning at a recent statewide gathering of Democrats?
Since 2002, when the legislature made judicial elections nonpartisan, the labels Democrat or Republican have not appeared beside judges' names on the ballot. But political experts say that avoiding partisanship in judicial races has been difficult.
They say that judges have to decide, in the absence of clear guidelines about what's appropriate, whether to stress their party ties to a voting public that primarily identifies candidates by party affiliation.
And then there are outside groups that can inject partisanship into judicial campaigns without the candidates having any say in the matter.
The influence of political parties in state judicial races has become evident this spring.
In March, a day after the filing period for state races ended, Edmunds made partisan comments during an appearance in Watauga County. Reynolds criticized Edmunds, saying his comments led voters to believe that judges can be swayed by party ties.
But Edmunds defended his comments, saying that his judicial work is free from bias and that judicial elections have taken on a partisan tone. He said he had to adapt to that.
Reynolds, a registered Democrat, said she doesn't feel pressured to campaign in a partisan way, but she said candidates tend to show up at party-sponsored events. In March, Reynolds attended a Young Democrats convention and told a reporter that there was nothing wrong with campaigning at a partisan event.
So far, Reynolds has not attended an event sponsored by the opposing party. Edmunds attended the Gates County convention sponsored by the Democratic Party on Saturday. Both said they have campaigned at nonpartisan events.
"The party events are where the most energized voters are at this point, so it's not surprising that candidates are there," Reynolds said. "There is limited amount of time to run a statewide race, so it's natural that ... [candidates] would spend their time where they are invited."
Edmunds ran in two elections before the switch to nonpartisan voting. He acknowledged that candidates tend to campaign along party lines.
"The judicial candidates do seem to keep in touch with their bases," Edmunds said. "I think that both parties are keeping score."
A recent report by the State Board of Elections took note of just how involved some key Democrats were in judicial elections in 2006. But it also indicated that the judicial candidates were powerless to do anything about it.
'Fair' and Democratic
The report looked into the work of the independent group Fairjudges.net, which had the publicly stated purpose of promoting "fair" judges. The group pumped more than $200,000 into television ads and promotions for three Democratic judicial candidates. It also supported Associate Justice Mark Martin, a registered Republican.
The report said that the organizers of Fairjudges had an agenda and likely coordinated with an employee of the state Democratic Party to help push Fairjudges' agenda during the 2006 election.
Mike Davis, a Democratic political consultant, told investigators that Fairjudges was his brainchild and that it was "the best option for helping Democrats win a majority" of Supreme Court seats.
Davis developed Fairjudges with two other Democrats -- both of whom had previously worked as political consultants for judicial candidates.
One of the report's findings was that Fairjudges organizers worked with Scott Falmlen, who administered a campaign for the state Democratic party to elect selected candidates.
The report said there was no evidence that the candidates knew about Fairjudges' plans beforehand.
By law, groups such as Fairjudges are prohibited from coordinating with parties, but a state elections board member says the law has some loopholes. The state elections board voted in March not to take any action against Fairjudges.
Chuck Winfree, a state board of elections member, said Fairjudges did not expressly support any candidate.
By law, that's all the board was allowed to consider in its decision of whether to take action against Fairjudges.
"We could not consider any evidence ... on who was behind [Fairjudges] or who paid for it, Winfree said. "The legislature has effectively tied our hands on our ability to take any action."
Outside influences such as Fairjudges show that the climate of judicial elections continues to change in North Carolina. And the rules governing them also continue to change, said Jim Drennan, a law professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.
In the end, the public's perception of the judiciary is at stake.
"Everyone wants a judiciary that is fair and impartial and that is viewed as fair and impartial, Drennan said. "Where people differ is how they define that."