Loretta H. Rush

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Loretta H. Rush
Image of Loretta H. Rush
Indiana Supreme Court
Tenure

2012 - Present

Term ends

2034

Years in position

12

Prior offices
Tippecanoe County Superior Court No. 3

Compensation

Base salary

$221,024

Elections and appointments
Last elected

November 5, 2024

Education

Bachelor's

Purdue University, 1980

Law

Indiana University, Bloomington, Maurer School of Law, 1983

Contact

Loretta H. Rush is a judge of the Indiana Supreme Court. She assumed office on November 7, 2012. Her current term ends on December 31, 2034.

Rush ran for re-election for judge of the Indiana Supreme Court. She won in the retention election on November 5, 2024.

Rush became the chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court on August 18, 2014.[1] She succeeded Brent Dickson. Rush is the first woman in the state to serve in this role.[2][3] The Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission reappointed her to another five-year term in 2019.[4]

Rush first became a member of the court by appointment. She was appointed by Republican Governor Mitch Daniels in September 2012 to succeed Justice Frank Sullivan, Jr.[5] She was retained in 2014.[6] To read more about judicial selection in Indiana, click here.

In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[7] Rush received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[8] Click here to read more about this study.


Biography

Rush received her undergraduate degree from Purdue University in 1980 and her J.D. from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 1983.[9][6]

Rush worked at a law firm for 15 years before serving as a Tippecanoe County Superior Court judge. She was elected to that position three times. In 2012, Gov. Daniels appointed her to the state supreme court. Voters retained her in 2014. In August of that year, the judicial nominating commission named her chief justice, to which position the commission reappointed Rush in 2019.[6]

Rush co-chaired the National Judicial Opioid Task Force. As of July 2021, she was vice president of the Conference of Chief Justices Board of Directors. She was appointed a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.[6]

Elections

2024

See also:  Indiana Supreme Court elections, 2024

Indiana Supreme Court, Loretta Rush's seat

Loretta H. Rush was retained to the Indiana Supreme Court on November 5, 2024 with 71.4% of the vote.

Retention
 Vote
%
Votes
Yes
 
71.4
 
1,636,577
No
 
28.6
 
655,549
Total Votes
2,292,126


Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Rush in this election.

2014

See also: Indiana judicial elections, 2014

Rush was retained to the Indiana Supreme Court.[6] 

2010

See also: Indiana judicial elections, 2010

Rush was re-elected to the Tippecanoe County Superior Court, Number 3, in 2010. She received 10,822 votes.[10]

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Loretta H. Rush did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

Campaign finance summary

Ballotpedia currently provides campaign finance data for all federal- and state-level candidates from 2020 and later. We are continuously working to expand our data to include prior elections. That information will be published here as we acquire it. If you would like to help us provide this data, please consider donating to Ballotpedia.

Analysis

Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)

See also: Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship and Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters

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. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[11]

The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:

  • Strong Democrat
  • Mild Democrat
  • Indeterminate[12]
  • Mild Republican
  • Strong Republican

This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.

Loretta
Rush

Indiana

  • Partisan Confidence Score:
    Mild Republican
  • Judicial Selection Method:
    Assisted appointment through hybrid judicial nominating commission
  • Key Factors:
    • Donated less than $2,000 to Republican candidates
    • Appointed by a Republican governor
    • State was a Republican trifecta at time of appointment


Partisan Profile

Details:

Rush donated $55 to Republican candidates and organizations. She was appointed by Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) in 2012. At the time of her appointment, Indiana was a Republican trifecta.



Noteworthy events

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Coronavirus pandemic
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Tested positive for coronavirus on September 13, 2020

See also: Government official, politician, and candidate deaths, diagnoses, and quarantines due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-2021

Rush announced on September 13 that she had tested positive for coronavirus and was quarantining at home.[13]

State supreme court judicial selection in Indiana

See also: Judicial selection in Indiana

The five justices on the Indiana Supreme Court are selected through the assisted appointment method. The Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission is responsible for providing the names of three nominees to the governor, who must then select a justice from that list.[14][15] The commission is made up of six voting members from the three geographic districts covered by the Indiana Court of Appeals. Members include three attorneys, elected by attorneys in their respective geographic districts, and three non-attorneys, appointed by the governor. The chief justice or his or her designee serves as an ex officio member of the commission.[15]

Justices serve at least two years following their initial appointment. They must stand for retention at the first statewide general election to remain in office. If retained, justices serve a ten-year term and must stand for retention every ten years after that point to remain in office.[16]

Qualifications

To serve on this court, a judge must be:

  • a U.S. citizen;
  • an Indiana resident;
  • admitted to practice law in the state for at least 10 years or have served as a trial court judge for at least five years; and
  • under the age of 75 (retirement at 75 is mandatory).[14]

Chief Justice

The chief justice is selected by the Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission from the members of the supreme court and serves a five-year term.[15] In the event of a vacancy, the justice with the longest tenure on the supreme court serves as acting chief justice until the nominating commission fills the position.[15]

Vacancies

See also: How vacancies are filled in state supreme courts

If a midterm vacancy occurs on the court, the position is filled as it normally would be had the vacancy occurred at the end of a justice's term. The Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission provides the names of three nominees to the governor, who must then select a justice from that list.[14][15] The new appointee serves at least two years following his or her initial appointment and must stand for retention at the first statewide general election to remain in office.[16] The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.


See also

Indiana Judicial Selection More Courts
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Courts in Indiana
Indiana Court of Appeals
Indiana Supreme Court
Elections: 202520242023202220212020201920182017
Gubernatorial appointments
Judicial selection in Indiana
Federal courts
State courts
Local courts

External links

Footnotes

  1. Indy Star, "Loretta Rush becomes chief justice today," August 18, 2014
  2. NBC Chicago, "Indiana Gets First Female Supreme Court Chief Justice," August 7, 2014
  3. Indy Star, "Loretta Rush named first female chief justice of Indiana Supreme Court," August 6, 2014
  4. Daily News, "Rush reappointed as chief justice of state Supreme Court," August 21, 2019
  5. IndyStar, "Loretta Rush named first female chief justice of Indiana Supreme Court," August 6, 2014
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 IN.gov, "Hon Loretta H Rush," accessed July 12, 2021
  7. We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
  8. The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
  9. Martindale, "Judge Profile: Hon. Loretta Hogan Rush," accessed July 12, 2021
  10. Indiana Courts, "Indiana Primary Election Results," archived October 17, 2014
  11. The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
  12. 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.
  13. WBIW, "Chief Justice Loretta Rush Tests Positive for COVID-19," September 14, 2020
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 National Center for State Courts, "Method of Judicial Selection: Indiana," accessed Aug. 23, 2021
  15. 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 State of Indiana, "Judicial Nominating Commission Fact Sheet," accessed Aug. 23, 2021
  16. 16.0 16.1 State of Indiana, "About the Court," accessed Aug. 23, 2021