Trust us lawyers to pick your judges!

This National Journal article hand wrings about campaign advocacy from certain sources. National Journal Online - Big Money Already Flowing Into Judicial Elections:

Close to four months after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling to roll back restrictions on corporate political spending, conservatives continue to downplay its significance.

Predictions that the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling will unleash a torrent of corporate money are wildly overblown, free speech advocates insist. As evidence, they argue that corporate money has yet to flood elections in the 26 states that already impose no limit on corporate spending.

But a closer look at state-level elections suggests that independent political expenditures by corporations, unions and other special interests are substantial. This is particularly true in judicial elections, which have gotten dramatically costlier, nastier and more controversial over the past decade. The Citizens United ruling may impact judicial races even more drastically than federal elections, some experts argue.

Actually, a closer look merely demonstrates that "corporate" expenditures are only a smidgeon higher than expenditures from "lawyers and lobbyists" (ahhh, if only we all were able to, as individuals, give serious money to candidates we supported . . .). But the underlying message of the article (i.e., the message espoused by the experts selected by Eliza Newlin Carney to comment on the subject) is that electing judges is unwise because voters somehow don't appreciate Rule of Law. All the anti-judicial-election commenters imply that we need low-key campaigns for judges because voters cast ballots based on the political positions of judicial candidates. Actually, polling data reflect that voters care more about judicial activism than they do about a judge's position on particular issues.