State appeals ruling calling Marion County judicial election system unconstitutional

The state is appealing a federal judge’s recent ruling that deemed Marion County’s judicial election system unconstitutional.

The Indiana attorney general filed a notice of appeal Friday, about a week after Judge Richard Young of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled that the current state law governing how judges are elected in Marion County is unconstitutional because it disenfranchises voters.

“As state government’s lawyer, the Attorney General’s Office by law has a duty to defend the state statutes the legislature passed from lawsuits that plaintiffs’ lawyers file,” Bryan Corbin, spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said in a statement.

Young’s ruling came almost two years after the Common Cause Indiana nonprofit challenged the statute in a lawsuit filed against Indiana’s secretary of state, members of the Indiana Election Commission and Gov. Mike Pence. In his 19-page ruling, Young said the current system denies voters an opportunity to meaningfully vote for a judicial candidate.

The ruling won’t affect the November general election. A stay is currently in place, pending a decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Young’s decision was strongly criticized by the Marion County Republican Party. Chairman Kyle Walker said the judge’s ruling conforms with Young’s “apparent personal bias against judicial elections in general.”

Under the current system being challenged, the two major political parties in Marion County conduct primary elections in which they each get to nominate half of the candidates for the exact number of judicial seats to be filled. That means those who get party nominations in the primary are virtually assured of winning in the general election.

If Young’s ruling survives an appeal, the Indiana General Assembly may have to craft a new system of electing judges. Because the next judicial election won’t be until 2018, the state legislature will have four years to figure out how to fix the system, said Joel Schumm, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis.

It’s also likely that the results of the upcoming election will be rendered invalid, and a special election would have to take place, said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor in Los Angeles who focuses on election law.

Contact Star reporter Kristine Guerra at (317) 444-6209. Follow her on Twitter: @kristine_guerra.