BIDDING FOR JUSTICE: THE INFLUENCE OF ATTORNEYS' CONTRIBUTIONS ON STATE SUPREME COURTS *

Abstract

A few states, including Wisconsin, attempted to curb the influence of money and politics on judicial decisions by including nonpartisan elections and public financing of campaigns in their system of judicial selection. Despite these reforms, we posit a relationship between the campaign contributions by attorneys to an individual judge and the vote of that individual judge over a ten-year period of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. We examine the effects of attorneys ’ contributions on votes in a number of areas of law. The data for this article, obtained from the National Institute for Money in Politics, include the donations by attor-neys to the judges of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the decisions those judges made post-contributions. We find little evidence to support a systematic relationship between attorneys’ campaign contributions and the votes of judges in Wisconsin. However, there is evidence to suggest that some individual judges may be influenced despite state efforts to curb the influ-ence of money in politics. he need to launch a successful campaign raises issues concerning the influence of campaign contributions—contributions that become increasingly necessary as state judicial campaigns become more expensive. Campaign contributions then