Prof. Kritzer Quoted in Duluth Tribune about 2022 Judicial Elections
Professor Herbert Kritzer was extensively quoted in a Duluth News Tribune article focused on the lack of competition in the 2022 Minnesota judicial elections. Across all three court levels, only one race out of more than 100 is contested, a race for district judge in the Fifth Judicial District.
Kritzer noted that Minnesota has a long-standing pattern of uncontested judicial elections and in very few such elections is an incumbent defeated. The last time a Minnesota Supreme Court incumbent was defeated was in 1946 and that incumbent had been appointed to fill a vacancy not long before the election. No incumbent on the Minnesota Court of Appeals has been defeated since it began operating in 1983. Since 2000, only four District Court incumbents have lost, most recently in 2018 in Ramsey County where the incumbent had pulled out the "judge card" when he was stopped for driving while under the influence.
Kritzer also explained that at the trial level it is unsurprising that few incumbents are challenged, particularly in nonpartisan elections, because a loosing challenger is likely to have to appear before the incumbent after the election as an advocate. In his current research on litigation over judicial election, he found no examples of successful appeals by defeated challengers of a judge's refusal to recuse when the challenger was representing a party in a case before the judge.