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Ohio Citizen Action assesses Judicial Impartiality: The Next Steps Group backs disclosure of lawyers' contributions to judges For Immediate Release January 12, 2004 Contact: Catherine Turcer (614) 263-4111 Ohio Citizen Action today backed disclosure of attorney contributions to judges, a key recommendation of Chief Justice Thomas Moyer's working group report released today. "Identifying the attorneys who appear before a judge to whom they contributed will give Ohioans a clearer picture of campaign finance and judicial elections," said Catherine Turcer, legislative director for Ohio Citizen Action. "Campaign finance information is a puzzle and these recommendations give us a few more of the missing pieces," she said. Citizen Action opposed, however, the recommendation for raises in judges salaries. "At a time when the state has cut funding to many human services and when Ohio judges already make triple the salary of the average Ohioan, we should not consider increasing the salaries of judges beyond cost of living, " said Turcer. "At the Supreme Court level, salaries are already out of line with those for other statewide offices." During 2004, Governor Bob Taft will receive a salary of $130,786 and Chief Justice Thomas Moyer $136,800.
Turcer also commented on recommendations for voter guides and lengthening terms of judicial office: "A voter guide can be the first step in engaging the public and encourage them to look for more information about judicial candidates," she said. "In the midst of the 2002 election, a poll by Opinion Strategies for the League of Women Voters of Ohio found that 42% of those polled believe that the Ohio Supreme Court justices are appointed and 11% were not sure whether the justices were appointed or elected." "Voter guides can help counter special interests by providing voters more information than they would receive from paid ads," said Turcer. "The Ohio Secretary of State’s website should be included in any voter guide so that voters know where they can find information about contributors to the candidates." "The power of incumbency means that lengthening terms would have little effect," said Turcer. "Lengthening terms only makes sense in the context of other reforms like public financing and is not a 'stand alone' reform. If Ohio moves to a system of public financing of judicial elections as a way to insulate justices from the influence of contributions, increasing term lengths makes sense to reduce the costs of these elections." On March 6, 2003, Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer, League of Women Voters of Ohio, Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at Ohio State University, and the Ohio State Bar Association, held an all day event called Judicial Impartiality: The Next Steps to discuss Ohio’s judicial selection process. Following this forum, the conveners established working groups to address judicial qualification and term lengths, campaign finance disclosure, and voter guides and public financing. Each of these working groups prepared a report summarizing their progress during 2003. Today, the Chief Justice released this update called Judicial Impartiality The Next Steps Progress Report 2004 and asked for public comments. Catherine Turcer, the Legislative Director for Ohio Citizen Action, served on both the campaign finance disclosure and the voter guides and public financing working groups. Ohio Citizen Action is the state's largest environmental organization, with 100,000 dues-paying members. Non-profit and non-partisan, Ohio Citizen Action was founded in 1975. The Ohio Citizen Action Education Fund has been producing money and politics studies since 1992. # # #
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