Supreme Court tells elected judges not to rule on major backers

When Michigan residents vote next year for Supreme Court Justice, it is doubtful that any of them will have just given incumbent Robert Young $3 Million in campaign contributions. Robert Young, Maura Corrigan, and ex-Chief Justice Cliff Taylor, all argued in a brief to the United States Supreme Court that there was nothing wrong with the president of a company giving $3 Million in campaign contributions to a man running for a seat on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and then after that man won by less than 50,000 votes, deciding a major case involving the donor’s company. Thank goodness the United States Supreme Court isn’t made up with Engler appointees.

Robert Young was dead wrong again, and his position shows just how out of touch with America he really is. Even in the face of unbelievable facts (the $3 Million was more than all the other contributions put together AND it was more than the West Virginia Judge’s committee even spent on the campaign), he still had the nerve to argue that preventing that Justice from participating in the reversal of a $50 Million jury verdict would allow "the entire process of judicial elections [to] be imperiled." Makes you wonder who is funding his re-election campaign and what cases they’d like to see Young try and reverse.

Now, as Massey Coal Company tries to save face and claim that it believes it would still win reversal of the jury verdict with "any new examination of the same facts," one thing is true: the United States Supreme Court has said NO to trying to buy judges and outcomes. Next year it’ll be time for Michigan residents to say NO to Robert Young and his corporation-first, consumers-last agenda.