A bill introduced in January would have mandated that Supreme Court and Court of Appeal justices on the ballot for confirmation or retention themselves prepare a short “statement” for inclusion in the state voter information guide. The bill, Assembly Bill 265, was amended this week to put the responsibility on the Secretary of State to write information about those judicial candidates.
The bill also now specifies what information the voters would get: each justice’s current title, date of admission to the State Bar, educational background, professional legal background, and judicial background.
This information seems only marginally relevant to whether voters should support a judicial candidate. I wish that the voter guide would instead say something like, “Because they have been chosen by the governor and confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments, the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal candidates should be presumed qualified” and that it would then state the Rick Hasen principle that “it is only proper to vote against a sitting judge when that judge has done something ethically improper (such as taking a bribe) or has consistently issued rulings that are unprincipled or intellectually dishonest.”
