Judicial Voter Guides

• MFI Judicial Voter Guide
  For statewide judicial races only.  We encourage you to email or reproduce and distribute this Judicial Guide to your friends, family and church!
  
  
• Judicial Bios & Survey Responses
  Background information on statewide and local judicial candidates.
  -Minnlawyer.com
  
  
  
  
  

Mobilize 2008! (MnVoter.com) is a project of the Minnesota Family Institute, a 501(c)(3) subsidiary of the Minnesota Family Council. www.mfc.org

“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.”  - Leviticus 19:15

Why do we have judicial elections in Minnesota and What kind of judges should we elect?

The Minnesota Constitution, Article VI, Section 7, states that “The term of office of all judges shall be six years and until their successors are qualified. They shall be elected by the voters from the area which they are to serve in the manner provided by law.”

The establishment of judicial elections in the 1858 Minnesota Constitution was a response to the infamous US Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision ruled that slaves could not become citizens and therefore had no rights. The Court ruled Congress had no power to prevent the spread of slavery into new territories. There was such a strong reaction to this instance of judicial activism that the framers of the Minnesota Constitution established judicial elections to ensure that judges remained accountable to the people.

Founder Thomas Jefferson who wrote in 1820 expressed this concern for unaccountable judges on the Federal bench:

Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. . . . [A]nd their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.

Jefferson goes on to state the danger of exempting judges from the accountability of elections by the people.

The exemption of the judges from that [from election] is quite dangerous enough. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them [the people] not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it [control] from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

What kind of persons should be elected as judges? According to Noah Webster, a founding father, a judge and author of Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution,

[M]en elected to office should be able men, men of talents equal to their stations, men of mature age, experience and judgment; men of firmness and impartiality. This is particularly true with regard to men who constitute tribunals of justice - the main bulwark of our rights.

Minnesota Family Institute Policy on Political Activities:

As a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, Minnesota Family Institute (MFI) cannot intervene in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office. (more...)