The Arguments

Chapter 4 lays out the respective arguments for appointive and elective systems, against the backdrop of the new politics of judicial selection. It describes how gubernatorial appointment and merit selection systems are essentially pitted against partisan and nonpartisan election systems, and there is a peril to this binary approach in that it overlooks important distinctions between partisan and nonpartisan election systems on the one hand, and merit selection and traditional appointive systems on the other. The discussion begins with the role of the judge in American government, and the case that can be made for appointed judiciaries. It then makes the case for elected judiciaries before launching into the case for incremental reform.