It’s a really not good thing that in voters in so many states are put in charge of picking state judges, unlike almost all the other countries in the world. It’s a bad idea because a) it’s difficult for voters to make informed choices, and b) it leads judges to court and potentially be controlled by partisan interests. For Ohio voters, three Republican justices who are running for reelection on the state Supreme Court helped on the first issue, making it a little easier to make their decision on who to vote for, by proving that second problem: how influenced they are by partisan interests.
Cleveland’s ABC affiliate, News 5, obtained the questionnaires that current Justices Sharon Kennedy, Pat DeWine, and Pat Fischer filled out to get the support of Cincinnati Right to Life PAC back in March. All three of them agreed that there is no constitutional right to abortion. That’s before the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned that right.
Each of the justices also agreed with the assertion from the forced birth PAC that “An unborn child is biologically human at every stage of his or her biological development, beginning at fertilization.” From fertilization. Ohio could go from legal abortions up to 22 weeks to enforcing a personhood law with these three justices.
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News 5 points out that whenever they’ve asked justices for their position on certain topics, they refuse to respond saying they are not allowed to comment on pending cases or issues that might come before them. “We’re not allowed to comment on cases that are pending in front of our court or in any other court,” DeWine once told News 5.
When trying to get the forced birther political support, however, DeWine was happy to check off the box about abortion, while Dobbs was pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. The difference, of course, is that the Right to Life PAC candidate questionnaire isn’t a public statement. It was also pretty clear back in March, given what the SCOTUS extremist majority had done with the Texas abortion law, that it was going to severely limit—if not outright overturn—Roe’s constitutional protections to abortion.
Which made it inevitable that an abortion case was going to come before the Ohio Supreme Court. Which it will. The states’ six-week abortion ban is currently blocked by a lower court judge and will work its way up.
Pro Choice Ohio and Equality Ohio called foul, as did Dr. Tracy Pearson, an ethics and bias lawyer who told News 5 that the justices responding to the highly partisan questionnaire “demonstrates that you are not upholding the integrity of the legal system and administering the courts in a fair and impartial way.” That breaks the Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct, Pearson said.
“What you’ve done is you’ve made almost a campaign promise,” she added. “You’ve made an implicit promise.”
That’s exactly what they’ve done. On the one hand, it’s a travesty because it is not what judges—especially Supreme Court ones—are supposed to do. On the other hand, thanks for making your corruption so freaking obvious for voters to see.
We can’t vote out all the extremist U.S. Supreme Court justices who sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and lied through their teeth about respecting the precedent of Roe. But the voters in Ohio can make sure these three are booted.
Daily Kos has endorsed incumbent Justice Jennifer Brunner, Judge Terri Jamison, and Judge Marilyn Zayas to flip the Ohio Supreme Court. Currently, it has a Republican 4-3 majority, but one relatively moderate Republican justice has repeatedly sided with Democrats to rule against GOP gerrymanders there. However, she’s retiring. Democrats need to pick up a seat and add two more: Jamison and Zayas. That wouldn’t just keep abortion legal in Ohio, it would provide a critical bulwark against Republicans trying to steal the White House in 2024.
That’s also true in Michigan and North Carolina, where Daily Kos has endorsed Supreme Court candidates to help save democracy. Please help us help the candidates in these three states with your donation.
Abortion rights, climate change, and gun safety are all on the ballot this fall, and there are literally thousands of ways to get involved in turning our voters. Plug into a federal, state, or local campaign from our GOTV feed at Mobilize and help Democrats and progressives win in November.
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