Government: Too Much Money Going to State Court Races

Special interests are flooding state Supreme Court races with millions of dollars to try to tip the courts in their direction.

A study being released Monday documents an arms race that's escalating among business groups, trial lawyers and unions. They're all competing to raise money to put their favorite candidates on the bench.

The report from the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, Justice at Stake, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics, says that so much money is pouring into state judicial races from outside groups that it's beginning to undermine public confidence in the courts.

Who's spending all that money? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trial lawyers and unions — groups that Skaggs calls superspenders, and he says they're drowning out small individual donors.

For more, see Report: Too Much Money Going to State Court Races by Carrie Johnson, August 16, 2010, at National Public Radio.