(The Center Square) – Numerous judges are facing retention elections in Arizona this November, and the Arizona Commission on Judicial Performance review released their official ratings to help voters make a more informed decision.
“Arizona has judges who are elected directly by voters and judges who are appointed by the governor after a merit selection process. Appointed judges will then later appear on the ballot for voters to decide whether to keep them as judges,” the commission wrote, adding that it was created to facilitate surveys of judges who have seen them work firsthand in order to better determine whether or not they meet the right metrics to keep their jobs.
All of the judges met the commission’s standards, which is an improvement from 2022, in which former Judge Stephen Hopkins did not meet the standards and was ultimately not retained with over 63% “no” votes.
Two other judges were not retained during that race, even though it is an extremely uncommon occurrence for judges to get booted in Arizona, according to Axios.
There are dozens of state-level judges up for retention in November, including on the Arizona Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeals, and Superior Courts across the state. Appointed judges are not allowed to operate their own campaigns for their own retention, so campaigns will sometimes emerge for or against a judge to retain or remove them from the bench.
For example, state Supreme Court Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King have campaigns for and against them after they gained national attention for their decision to allow a stay to be lifted on a near-total abortion ban first created in 1864 over a 2022 15-week ban, which ended up being repealed by the state legislature before it could take effect.
Meanwhile, Proposition 137 on the ballot aims to get rid of judicial retention elections altogether and instead base retention on “good behavior” and would scrap the results of the judicial races in November.
