Five of Delaware’s former governors and two former state supreme court chief justices have filed amicus briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court, encouraging the Court to uphold Delaware’s constitutional requirement that its judiciary be politically balanced. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit struck down the provision as violating the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. “[J]udges are not policymakers because whatever decisions judges make in any given case relates to the case under review and not to partisan political interests,” the appeals court said.

As reported by Reuters, the first provision in question (the “bare majority” requirement) “insists that no more than 50% of the judges of the Supreme, Superior and Chancery Courts be affiliated with either major political party,” and the second “requires that Delaware judges be affiliated with one of the two major parties in the state” (the “major party” requirement). “The decision came after James Adams, an attorney who has held high-level positions at the Delaware Department of Justice, filed a federal lawsuit against [Gov. John] Carney claiming he and other independent and third-party members are being discriminated against in the process of picking judges,” according to the Delaware Online.

“The Third Circuit’s decision is both wrong and important. If allowed to stand, it will render numerous judicial selection processes vulnerable to challenge by aspiring judges who were not considered because of their party affiliation,” according to the former chief justices’ brief. The former governors’ brief further maintains that “[t]he decision below risks permanently damaging a nonpartisan system that has provided Delaware with an unparalleled judiciary of unique historical and economic importance to the State.”

According to Courthouse News Service, District Court Judge Joseph W. Seidlin of Iowa will soon issue his ruling on Des Moines attorney Thomas Duff’s legal challenge to a recently enacted law that gave the governor greater influence over the state’s judicial nominating commission.

The law, SF 638, was passed by “Iowa’s Republican-dominated Legislature … in the middle of the night late in April” and “gave Republican Governor Kim Reynolds authority to appoint nine members of the 17-member commission that nominates judges for the Iowa Supreme Court and Court of Appeals,” according to Courthouse News Service. Previously, “the commission was equally divided between members appointed by the governor and members elected by Iowa lawyers, and it was chaired by a senior justice on the state Supreme Court.”

Duff claims that the law “politicizes the process…in violation of a provision of the Iowa Constitution that established a nonpartisan merit-selection system in 1962.” He also claims that "he was harmed by the change because he was denied a shot at becoming a judge on the Iowa Court of Appeals when the newly constituted commission did not pick him as a nominee” and “the elected commission members’ votes were diluted by the political appointees’ votes.” Iowa’s Assistant Attorney General Davis Ranscht dismissed Duff’s claims, stating “[t]he lawyers’ ability to elect members of the commission is not diluted.” “The lawyers always have been eight of the 17. There is no dilution,” he said.

Two state appeals court judges are headed to a runoff election for a seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court, according to the New Orleans Advocate. Judges William J. Crain and Hans J. Liljeberg received 32% and 32% of the vote, respectively, and were two of the four Republicans in Saturday’s primary vying for the seat previously held by Greg Guidry, who was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in June. According to the New Orleans Advocate, “[p]olitically, Crain and Liljeberg both count themselves as conservative jurists, and both have signaled they are anti-abortion and support the death penalty.”

As reported by the Louisiana Record, there was an influx of campaign spending by both the trial bar (in support of Liljeberg) and business interests (in support of Crain) prior to the primary. According to an analysis by the Brennan Center, over $400,000 was spent on TV ads supporting both candidates. Of that, over $170,000 was paid for by Will Crain and around the same amount was paid for by Citizens Fighting Crime PAC.

“Louisiana already has had problems with at least one Supreme Court Justice over campaign contributions received from PACs with vested interest in coastal erosion and litigation arising from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill almost a decade ago,” according to the Louisiana Record.

Chief Judge Janet DiFiore recently announced her proposal for restructuring New York’s court system. DiFiore’s proposal would “would eliminate New York’s complex maze of 11 separate trial courts and replace it with a simplified three-level structure to make the courts easier to navigate, increase operational efficiency and reduce costs to litigants, among other potential benefits,” according to the press release.

Bloomberg Law reports that “New York is the only state in the country with 11 courts.” And the state’s existing court system, “which includes 1,350 state-paid judges and 15,000 non-judge state employees, handles more than 3 million new cases each year. Another 1,800 local justices work at the town and village level,” according to the Times Union.

DiFiore isn’t the first to suggest these changes; former Chief Judge Judith Kaye made several requests to lawmakers to consolidate the state’s courts. As reported by the Times Union, “[DiFiore’s] proposals require amendments to the state’s constitution, which need to pass two consecutively elected state Legislatures and then be approved by voters.”