All due respect, it’s almost laughable that Mississippi Court of Appeals Judge Ceola James is blaming U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson for her loss.
James, the incumbent, lost by more than 20,000 votes to challenger Latrice Westbrook, who defeated James 57 percent to 43 percent.
James says in a lawsuit she filed against the Democratic congressman and Westbrook that her challenger “willfully and unlawfully” formed an alliance with Thompson that led to Westbrook’s defeat of James in the election.
How was that alliance responsible for the outcome? The defeated judge accused Thompson in the lawsuit of circulating a sample or “false ballot” which contained Westbrook’s name only.
The law that James is accusing Westbrooks and Thompson of violating is the one that requires “non-partisan” judicial elections. Since the 1994 state legislative reforms gave Mississippi the modern iteration of “non-partisan” judicial elections, the laws have been effectively the target of the old political wink-and-nudge.
Whether Democrat or Republican, when judicial candidates receive support from political figures who are themselves declared partisans the cat is pretty much out of the bag. Republicans like GOP Gov. Phil Bryant have openly supported judicial candidates. Democratic public officials like Thompson have likewise done the same thing.
Mississippi’s laws don’t preclude partisans from expressing support for judicial candidates. The laws do preclude judicial candidates from labeling themselves as members of a party, but the law says nothing about the partisan leanings of their supporters.
Since the state’s first constitution was drafted in 1817, Mississippians have been arguing over whether to appoint or elect judges. In 1832, a constitutional convention fight erupted between three groups — the “aristocrats” who favored the appointment of all judges, the “half hogs” who wanted to elect some judges and have others appointed, and the “whole hogs” who wanted all judges elected.
The “whole hogs” won, and Mississippi has been electing judges ever since. Of the state’s current 545 judges from the Supreme Court to the municipal courts, only municipal judges are appointed. But Mississippi judicial races are supposed to be non-partisan — meaning that candidates don’t run under the cloak of any political party.
In the 2004 judicial races in Mississippi, that didn’t happen. Republicans tried actively to help candidates they believed supportive of tort reform.
One direct mail piece went so far as to portray Northern District Supreme Court Justice George Carlson as part of the Republican ticket. Carlson, an appointee of former Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, had no visible connection to the mailing.
While clearly violating the spirit of the laws, the mail piece apparently did not violate the letter of the law, based on a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Republican Party of Minnesota v. White case.
Mississippi’s “non-partisan” judicial races are likely to remain — legally — at least as partisan as they are today.
