Opinion ID: 1872176
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: campaign contributions

Text: Although plaintiffs have not raised the issue of campaign contributions, the issue has been a recurrent subject of media accounts that have commented on our spouses' employment, and we briefly address this in order to avoid recurrent motions for recusal. That a judge has at some time received a campaign contribution from a party, an attorney for a party, a law firm employing an attorney for a party, or a group having common interests with a party or an attorney, cannot reasonably require his or her disqualification. For there is no justice in Michigan in modern times who has not received campaign contributions from such persons. Nor is there a justice whose opponents have not received campaign contributions from such persons. And, increasingly, opposition campaigns have arisen in which contributions are specifically undertaken against particular justices. It is simply impossible for the Supreme Court, as well as most other courts in Michigan, to function if a lawful campaign contribution can constitute a basis for a judge's disqualification. For if a contribution to a judicial candidate can compel a judge's disqualification, then a contribution to an opponent, or the funding of an opposition campaign, must operate in a similar fashion. If so, it would be a simple expedient for a party or a lawyer to mold the court that will hear his or her cases by tailoring contributions and opposition contributions. Even more fundamentally, however, We, the people, of the State of Michigan, through the Constitution, have created a system of judicial selection in our state in which candidates are nominated by, and elected through, a political process. It is a different system of judicial selection than that which exists in other states and in the federal system, and reasonable persons can debate the merits and demerits of this system. Each of us in different forums has urged various reforms of this system. Nonetheless, the present system has been ordained by our Constitution, and it defines the environment in which those aspiring to judicial office must undertake their efforts. The premise of our system of judicial selection in Michigan is that judges will periodically be held accountable for their performance. There are no lifetime appointments to judicial positions, and there are no unaccountable committees who determine whether judges should be maintained in office. Thus, the most notable strength of our system of judicial selection is that it requires candidates for judicial office to go out among the electorate and explain why they should be placed in office. This system fosters communication with the electorate, speech-making, debate, the search for support and endorsements, campaign advertising, expressions of judicial philosophy, and efforts to persuasively explain why the election of one or the other candidate ought to be preferred. Such campaigns must be directed toward an electorate in excess of four million people. In the case of Supreme Court justices, such campaigns will typically involve the expenditure of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars on television, radio, newspaper, and other advertising, with opposition campaigns expending similar amounts. These expenditures are not funded magically, but are raised from among the electorate, and from organizations that represent those among the electorate. Indeed, given the premise of our system of judicial selection that there should be periodic elections for judicial office, it would seem that it is better that campaigns be well-funded and informative, and that candidates be afforded the fullest opportunity to explain their differing perspectives on the judicial role, than that campaigns be poorly funded and result in candidates securing election on the basis of little more than a popular surname. There will simply be no end to the alleged appearance of impropriety if every contribution to a candidate, or every contribution to an opposing candidate, or every independent opposition campaign, is viewed as raising an ethical question concerning a judge's participation in a case in which a contributor or an opposition contributor is involved. Again, while cogent arguments have been made in favor of judicial selection reform, until such reforms are adopted by the people of Michigan, there is little alternative to active judicial participation in the electoral process and the concomitant need to raise funds in order to effectively participate and communicate in this process. If justices of the Supreme Court, in particular, were to recuse themselves on the basis of campaign contributions to their or their opponents' campaigns, there would be potential recusal motions in virtually every appeal heard by this Court, there would be an increasing number of recusal motions designed to effect essentially political ends, and there would be a deepening paralysis on the part of the Court in carrying out its essential responsibilities. Of considerable relevance to the subject of campaign contributions as a basis for recusal is the Legislature's establishment of limits on individual and political action committee contributions to Michigan judicial candidates. MCL 169.252 and 169.269. Such limits must be understood as clearly reflecting the Legislature's, and the people's, understanding that contributions in these amounts will not supply a basis for disqualification. That is, lawful contributions made within these limits, lawfully reported and lawfully disclosed, cannot fairly constitute a basis for judicial disqualification. Otherwise, these statutes, just as MCR 2.003 and Canon 3(C), would be little more than cleverly devised snares to be exploited by those wishing to undermine individual judges. A judge who plays by the rules should not be required to recuse himself or herself on the basis of such conduct. Thus, we assume, as have all the justices before us, that the Legislature decided that lawful campaign contributions would not give rise to a basis for judicial recusal.