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Idaho Supreme Court elections, 2022
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The terms of two Idaho Supreme Court justices expired on January 2, 2023. The two seats were up for nonpartisan election on May 17, 2022. A runoff was scheduled for November 8, 2022, but it was canceled.
Idaho was one of 30 states that held elections for state supreme court in 2022. That year, 84 of the 344 seats on state supreme courts were up for election. Of those, 64 were held by nonpartisan justices, 13 were held by Republican justices, and eight were held by Democratic justices. For more on the partisan affiliation of state supreme court justices, click here. For an overview of state supreme court elections in 2022, click here.
Candidates and election results
Zahn's seat
General election
General election for Idaho Supreme Court
Incumbent Colleen Zahn won election in the general election for Idaho Supreme Court on May 17, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Colleen Zahn (Nonpartisan) | 100.0 | 221,658 |
| Total votes: 221,658 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Brody's seat
General election
General election for Idaho Supreme Court
Incumbent Robyn Brody won election in the general election for Idaho Supreme Court on May 17, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Robyn Brody (Nonpartisan) | 100.0 | 221,501 |
| Total votes: 221,501 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Voting information
- See also: Voting in Idaho
About the Idaho Supreme Court
- See also: Idaho Supreme Court
The Idaho Supreme Court is the state's court of last resort. It is composed of five justices: a chief justice and four justices. Justices are selected in nonpartisan elections and serve six-year terms.
Political composition
This was the political composition of the supreme court heading into the 2022 election. Justices on the Idaho Supreme Court are elected to their seats, and replacements are appointed by governors in the case of midterm vacancies.
| ■ G. Richard Bevan | Appointed by Gov. Butch Otter (R) in 2017 | |
| ■ Robyn Brody | Elected in 2016 | |
| ■ Colleen Zahn | Appointed by Gov. Brad Little (R) in 2021 | |
| ■ Gregory W. Moeller | Appointed by Gov. Butch Otter (R) in 2018 | |
| ■ John R. Stegner | Appointed by Gov. Butch Otter (R) in 2018 |
Selection
- See also: Nonpartisan election of judges
The five justices of the Idaho Supreme Court are elected in nonpartisan elections. They serve six-year terms, after which they must seek re-election if they wish to retain their seat.[1] If a midterm vacancy occurs on the court, an interim justice is appointed by the governor from a list of two to four names provided by a nominating commission. This justice will serve out the remainder of the unexpired term, after which he or she must run in a nonpartisan election to continue serving.[1]
Qualifications
To serve on the court, a justice must:
- be at least 30 years old;
- be a U.S. citizen;
- be an Idaho resident for at least two years; and
- have had 10 years of in-state law practice.[1]
Selection of the chief justice
The chief justice of the supreme court is selected by peer vote to serve a four-year term.[1]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters (2021)
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters, a study on how state supreme court justices decided the cases that came before them. Our goal was to determine which justices ruled together most often, which frequently dissented, and which courts featured the most unanimous or contentious decisions.
The study tracked the position taken by each state supreme court justice in every case they decided in 2020, then tallied the number of times the justices on the court ruled together. We identified the following types of justices:
- We considered two justices opinion partners if they frequently concurred or dissented together throughout the year.
- We considered justices a dissenting minority if they frequently opposed decisions together as a -1 minority.
- We considered a group of justices a determining majority if they frequently determined cases by a +1 majority throughout the year.
- We considered a justice a lone dissenter if he or she frequently dissented alone in cases throughout the year.
Summary of cases decided in 2020
- Number of justices: 5
- Number of cases: 140
- Percentage of cases with a unanimous ruling: 90.0%% (126)
- Justice most often writing the majority opinion: Justice G. Richard Bevan (29)
- Per curiam decisions: 0
- Concurring opinions: 8
- Justice with most concurring opinions: Justice John Stegner (5)
- Dissenting opinions: 14
- Justice with most dissenting opinions: Justice John Stegner (8)
For the study's full set of findings in Idaho, click here.
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
- See also: Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation, based on a variety of factors. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on the political or ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. To arrive at confidence scores we analyzed each justice's past partisan activity by collecting data on campaign finance, past political positions, party registration history, as well as other factors. The five categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[2]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
We used the Confidence Scores of each justice to develop a Court Balance Score, which attempted to show the balance among justices with Democratic, Republican, and Indeterminate Confidence Scores on a court. Courts with higher positive Court Balance Scores included justices with higher Republican Confidence Scores, while courts with lower negative Court Balance Scores included justices with higher Democratic Confidence Scores. Courts closest to zero either had justices with conflicting partisanship or justices with Indeterminate Confidence Scores.[3]
Idaho had a Court Balance Score of 7, indicating Republican control of the court. In total, the study found that there were 15 states with Democrat-controlled courts, 27 states with Republican-controlled courts, and eight states with Split courts. The map below shows the court balance score of each state.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: Idaho," archived October 2, 2014
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ The Court Balance Score is calculated by finding the average partisan Confidence Score of all justices on a state supreme court. For example, if a state has justices on the state supreme court with Confidence Scores of 4, -2, 2, 14, -2, 3, and 4, the Court Balance is the average of those scores: 3.3. Therefore, the Confidence Score on the court is Mild Republican. The use of positive and negative numbers in presenting both Confidence Scores and Court Balance Scores should not be understood to that either a Republican or Democratic score is positive or negative. The numerical values represent their distance from zero, not whether one score is better or worse than another.
Federal courts:
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: District of Idaho • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: District of Idaho
State courts:
Idaho Supreme Court • Idaho Court of Appeals • Idaho District Courts • Idaho Magistrate Division
State resources:
Courts in Idaho • Idaho judicial elections • Judicial selection in Idaho
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