SGER: Money, Politics, and the Legitimacy of State Supreme Courts: The Impact of Recusals and Disqualifications

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The legitimacy of state high courts has become increasingly fragile as a result of politicized elections for the judges sitting on these courts. One of the most threatening of the many recent developments is conflicts of interest (real and apparent) that arise when those litigating before a court are the very same individuals and institutions contributing money to the judges during their election campaigns. Many believe that such contributions fundamentally undermine the legitimacy of elected courts. In no instance is this conflict more severe than in the case of Caperton v Massey, a decision from the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeal, to which the U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari. This case involves a crucial vote to overturn a $50,000,000 lower court judgment against Massey by a justice who received large campaign contributions from the Massey side during the preceding judicial election. Using this context, our goals in this project include: (1) determining how much legitimacy the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeal enjoys; (2) assessing whether that legitimacy is affected by the campaign contribution controversy; (3) investigating whether the contribution issue taints only the implicated justice or whether more general institutional consequences arise; (4) determining whether recusals rehabilitate an offending justice; (5) testing hypotheses about the specific attributes of campaign contributions that influence perceptions of judicial impartiality, and hence of the legitimacy of courts; (6) conducting all of this analysis within the context of an expectancy theory of courts that recognizes that some citizens have come to expect that the judiciary should act in a reasonably ideological fashion; and (7) investigating whether the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court affects perceptions of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeal via "legitimacy conferring" processes. This project is based upon a two-wave panel survey of the residents of West Virginia.