Municipal government selection of judges

Methods of judicial selection
Election methods
Partisan election
Nonpartisan election
Michigan method
Retention election
Assisted appointment
Assisted appointment
Bar-controlled commission
Governor-controlled commission
Hybrid commission
Direct appointment
Court appointment
Gubernatorial appointment
Legislative election
Municipal government selection

Municipal government selection of judges is a process by which judges are selected to local courts to terms of varying lengths by the governing body of their municipality. As of April 2025, 20 states use this method at the local level.

Other methods of judicial selection include: assisted appointment, gubernatorial appointment, partisan and nonpartisan elections, the Michigan method, court appointment, and legislative elections. To read more about how these selection methods are used across the country, click here.

States using this method

Local courts

In selecting judges for local courts, 20 states use municipal government selection of judges for at least one type of court. These courts include alderman's courts, city courts, criminal courts, justice courts, mayor's courts, and municipal courts.

Judicial selection methods

Each state has a unique set of guidelines governing how they select judges at the state and local level. These methods of selection are:

Election

• Partisan election: Judges are elected by the people, and candidates are listed on the ballot alongside a label designating political party affiliation.
• Nonpartisan election: Judges are elected by the people, and candidates are listed on the ballot without a label designating party affiliation.
• Michigan method: State supreme court justices are selected through nonpartisan elections preceded by either partisan primaries or conventions.
• Retention election: A periodic process whereby voters are asked whether an incumbent judge should remain in office for another term. Judges are not selected for initial terms in office using this election method.

Assisted appointment

• Assisted appointment, also known as merit selection or the Missouri Plan: A nominating commission reviews the qualifications of judicial candidates and submits a list of names to the governor, who appoints a judge from the list. At the state supreme court level, this method is further divided into the following three types:
  • Bar-controlled commission: Members of the state Bar Association are responsible for electing a majority of the judicial nominating commission that sends the governor a list of nominees that they must choose from.
  • Governor-controlled commission: The governor is responsible for appointing a majority of the judicial nominating commission that sends the governor a list of nominees they must choose from.
  • Hybrid commission: The judicial nominating commission has no majority of members chosen by either the governor or the state bar association. These commissions determine membership in a variety of ways, but no institution or organization has a clear majority control.

Direct appointment

• Court appointment: Judges are selected by judges in the state judiciary.
• Gubernatorial appointment: Judges are appointed by the governor. In some cases, approval from the legislative body is required.
• Legislative election: Judges are selected by the state legislature.
• Municipal government selection: Judges are selected by the governing body of their municipality.

Click a state on the map below to explore judicial selection processes in that state.

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http://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_selection_in_STATE

Brief history of judicial selection

At the founding of the United States, all states selected judges through either gubernatorial or legislative appointments. In 1832, Mississippi became the first state to implement judicial elections. New York followed suit in 1846, and a national shift occurred as states joined them. By the time the Civil War began in 1861, 24 of the 34 states had an elected judiciary, and every state that achieved statehood after the Civil War provided for the election of some—if not all—of its judges.

Scholars attribute the move toward judicial elections to a variety of factors, including:

• concern over an independent judiciary, especially after Marbury v. Madison established the judiciary's power as equal to that of the executive and legislative branches,
• imitation by the states,
• belief that judges at a local level should be accountable and responsive to their communities, and
• the growing popularity of Jacksonian ideals, which elevated the voice of the average American.

Initially, all judicial elections were partisan. But as time went on, public trust in elected judiciaries wavered, and citizens who viewed the courts as overrun by machine politics began looking for alternative methods. Groups such as the Progressives, the American Bar Association, and the American Judicature Society led an effort to restore what they called "the traditional respect for the bench," which they said had been lost.

One other popular selection method was the nonpartisan election of judges, first implemented by Cook County, Illinois in 1873. By not including party affiliation on the ballot, supporters argued, divisive partisan interests would find no footing in state and local selection processes.

“	Since judges are supposed to be “above politics,” this reform was particularly popular regarding judicial selection. Nonpartisan judicial elections were perceived as a way to clean up corruption and cronyism in the judicial selection process while still keeping judges accountable to the people.	”
—Associate Professor Matthew J. Streb of Northern Illinois University

Though states continued to experiment with selection methods throughout the next century, the methods of legislative elections and direct gubernatorial appointments did not see a return. No state that achieved statehood after 1847 had an original constitution calling for these methods except Hawaii, whose judges were initially chosen by gubernatorial appointment with senate consent.

By 1927, 12 states selected judges in nonpartisan elections. Critics claimed that as long as judges had to campaign for office, politics would still play a role. Other critics questioned whether citizens would be able to cast informed ballots in nonpartisan judicial elections, offering the assumption being that party affiliation communicates a candidate's values in an easy shorthand. Three states that had experimented with nonpartisan elections switched back to partisan ones by 1927.

Out of these concerns arose a third kind of election, the retention election, which the American Judicature Society argued encapsulates the positive aspects of each selection system. Retention elections were meant to work within the assisted appointment method to give judges relief from campaigning against an opponent while also giving voters the power to remove those judges from office if necessary. In 1940, Missouri became the first state to adopt the assisted appointment method as we know it today, and since then more than thirty states followed suit, using some form of retention elections at some level of their judiciary.

See also

State courts	Appointment methods	Election methods
State supreme courts Intermediate appellate courts Trial courts	Assisted appointment Court appointment Gubernatorial appointment Legislative election Municipal government selection	Partisan election Nonpartisan election Michigan method

External links

Suggest a link

• National Center for State Courts
• American Judicature Society - Methods of Judicial Selection