C. Scott Peters - Regulating Judicial Elections: Assessing State Codes of Judicial Conduct

First published 2018

by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2018 Taylor & Francis

The right of C. Scott Peters to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Peters, C. Scott, 1971, author.

Title: Regulating judicial elections : assessing state codes of judicial

conduct / C. Scott Peters.

Description: New York: Routledge, 2017. | Series: Law, courts and

politics | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017014962 (print) | LCCN 2017022309 (ebook) |

ISBN 9781315623573 (Master) | ISBN 9781317226420 (WebPDF) |

ISBN 9781317226413 (ePub) | ISBN 9781317226406 (Mobipocket/

Kindle) | ISBN 9781138653825 (hardback: alk. paper) |

ISBN 9781138653832 (pbk.: alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: JudgesSelection and appointmentUnited States

States. | JudgesUnited StatesStatesElection.

Classification: LCC KF8785 (ebook) | LCC KF8785 .P48 2017 (print) |

DDC 347.73/14dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014962

ISBN: 978-1-138-65382-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-65383-2 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-62357-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

I started working on the research that would eventually become this book about eight years ago. I was struck by the fact that debate swirled around the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White and that the American Bar Association (ABA) and states were scrambling to respond by revising their codes of conduct, but that no one actually knew whether the codes of conduct mattered in the first place, whether they really affected candidates behavior in any way. I set out to find out, and I hope this volume provides some insight into that question. I am convinced that our normative debates about judicial selection benefit from empirical insights, and so Ive tried to frame this investigation within the larger normative debates about the costs/benefits of judicial independence and judicial accountability. My aim was to make the book readable and relevant for legal scholars and practitioners as well as political scientists. I also hope it sparks more empirical research on the various ways that states seek to protect judicial independence. Toward that end, I have made available at http://www.cscottpeters.net not only replication datasets, but the text of all state codes of conduct regulating political activities that I coded. Future scholars may very well find better ways to code the ethical regulations than I came up with here.