Clifford Taylor, chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
“Judicial elections are becoming political prizefights where partisans and special interests seek to install judges who will answer to them instead of the law and the Constitution,” said former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

That remark from one of the nation’s most respected legal minds is among a plethora of factors that have triggered a national movement to ensure that the political campagns of all seven justices of the Michigan Supreme Court — Michael Cavanagh, Maura Corrigan, Stephen Markman, Marilyn Kelly, Robert Young, Elizabeth Weaver and Clifford Taylor — are funded by taxpayers rather than special interest money.

A new report, “The New Politics of Judicial Elections in the Great Lake States, 2000-2008,” reveals how Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Ohio have become the battlegrounds for a “spreading arms race between corporate interests, trial lawyers, ideological groups and political partisans who are committed to bending state judges to their will.”

According to the report released by the Midwest Democracy Network and the Justice at Stake Campaign in Washington, “Nowhere is the nationwide struggle to control and influence state Supreme Court elections more ominous than in the Great Lakes region.”

“There is really no accountability of who is contributing to Supreme Court candidates in Michigan,” said Rich Robinson of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. “There is a very high incidence of cases that involve contributors to the campaign of the justices that we don’t have a strong explicit standard to say if someone has supported your campaign you should disqualify yourself from hearing that case.”

In the report, independent groups, especially in Michigan are emerging as “long-term surrogates for incumbents and challengers,” citing 2006 as an example, when Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan “received more on-air advertising support from third party groups than she raised for her own re-election coffers. In 2004, five candidates raised slightly over $1.6 milllion, while independent groups spent $1.8 million on TV advertising.”

The report indicated that unlike Illinois and Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin have no disclosure requirement for groups that run so-called “issue” advertisements, when the ad mentions candidates before an election.

“Other than their benign-sounding names, very little is known about who is underwriting these ads. Stealth TV campaigns amplify the public’s fear that courts are becoming political footballs to be tossed around by well-heeled special interest,” the report said. “This cheapens the judiciary in the eyes of voters, most of whom already fear that campaign cash affects courtroom decisions.”

A typical example the report cited was in 2004, when a group called Citizens for Judicial Reform “later revealed to be a front group for trial attorney Geoffrey Fieger attacked incumbent Justice Stephen Markman, saying that with Markman on the high court, ‘no woman is safe.’ The same ad said that Markman was an ‘extremist’ who was ‘appointed in secret orders of the insurance industry and large corporations.”

Robinson said Michigan’s “don’t ask don’t tell policy” should end to avoid conflict of interest in cases heard by the state’s top justices.

“We should have public financing so Supreme Court justices don’t have to go to interest groups who end up with cases before them,” Robinson said. “It seems to be that we are more concerned about impartiality of sports officials than judges and justices.”

In the report Corrigan admitted that the present system gives the appearance of impropriety on the part of the justices.

“The current system does make it look like the justices are up for sale. I hope people will buy into the need for change,” Corrigan said in the report.

Like Robinson, Jocelyn Benson, the Wayne State University professor who specializes in election law, is also concerned “about the extent to which certain interests may have a greater influence on the judicial system than others.”

“As evidenced by several recent decisions that either heavily favor insurance providers or offer a questionable interpretation of constitutional language, our legal system is ripe for this type of reform,” Benson said. “I find less people have faith in the state Supreme Court because of what they see as a pattern of decisions that either favor corporations or make it more difficult to bring cases to begin with.”

Benson also said there should be greater public attention to judicial campaigns.

“The public has the ultimate power in deciding who sits on the Michigan Supreme Court — the power of the vote. We should all care and be as concerned about judicial elections as we are about any other elections,” Benson said. “We have the power to hold our judges accountable to our interests — the interest of justice. It is crucial that we exercise this power, learn about all of the candidates who are running for judge in all levels of the court system and vote with our own conscience to endorse and hold accountable those in our judicial system.”

In January of last year, State Sen. Deborah Cherry (D-Genesee County) introduced Sen. Bill 0128 to address this issue. The legislation to provide public financing for Supreme Court candidates would have to be financed by a $3 million income tax check-off.

The bill would require candidates to meet certain qualifying “thresholds and agree to spending and fundraising limits. The Secretary of State would equalize the money made available to candidates in contested elections by taking into consideration various factors including the amount of independent expenditures by others.”

However, that legislation languishing in the Senate Campaign and Election Oversight Committee is not seeing the light of day anytime soon.

“Right now we are taking up our own legislation and holding hearings regarding campaign finance violations and how they are dealt with by the Secretary of State,” said Trevor Vandyke, legislative director for Sen. Michelle McManus (R-Leelanaw County) who heads the Campaign and Election Oversight Committee. Vandyke said his boss is currently busy and holding statewide hearings on Senate Bill 1299 which would require the Secretary of State to post on the Internet reports of campaign finance violations.

Asked if the legislation is not an urgent issue for McManus, Vandyke said, “This issue is important but it was not brought up in our public hearings. We want to take care of campaign finance violations first. Those are issues important to people.”

Bert Brandenburg of the Justice at Stake Campaign said the report was released, “because we are concerned that courts need to be independent and be secured from special interests.”

About $20 million is projected will be spent in the fall 2008 campaign for Michigan Supreme Court with lone incumbent Chief Justice Clifford Taylor.Michigan Democratic Party has not yet selected its nominee to challenge Taylor.

E-mail bthompson@michronicle.com.