The Ohio State Bar Association has long supported the idea of merit appointment/retention elections for judges but has done little to actually promote the idea since the failed referendum in 1987. I don’t understand the value in the OSBA voicing support for merit appointment when our association does not actively work to achieve it.
In contrast, Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor of the Ohio Supreme Court is aggressively pursuing her idea of changing the format for judicial elections. She proposed her ideas in an op-ed piece published in The Dispatch last May and launched a website where she solicits feedback for her eight-point program. In the most recent publication of Ohio Lawyer, she has solicited OSBA lawyers for their views. I disagree with Chief O’Connor’s ideas, but I applaud her for aggressively trying to make things happen.
If the OSBA doesn’t want to tackle the problem, then I suggest it stop saying that it supports merit appointment/retention elections. Doing so would be more genuine
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