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Robert P. Young Jr.
Robert Young was a 2018 Republican candidate who sought election to the U.S. Senate from Michigan.[1] He withdrew from the race on January 3, 2018, citing a lack of financial support.[2]
Young was included on President Donald Trump’s (R) June 2018 list of 25 potential Supreme Court nominees to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the court. Trump first released such a list during his 2016 presidential campaign and stated, “This list is definitive and I will choose only from it in picking future Justices of the United States Supreme Court.”[3][4]
Young was a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court. He was appointed to the court by Republican Governor John Engler in 1999 and was elected in 2002.[5] He was re-elected on November 2, 2010, to an eight-year term that would have ended on January 1, 2019.[6] He retired from the court on April 17, 2017.[7]
In January 2011, he was voted chief justice by his peers. He was elected to a second two-year term as chief in January 2013 and to a third term in January 2015.[8][9][10] He was succeeded as chief justice by Stephen Markman in January 2017.
On September 23, 2016, Young was included in a second list of individuals Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump "would consider as potential replacements for Justice Scalia at the United States Supreme Court."
Education
Young graduated in 1974 from Harvard College with honors and from Harvard Law School in 1977.[11]
Career
- 1999-2017: Justice, Michigan Supreme Court
- 2011-2017: Chief justice
- 1995-1999: Judge, Michigan Court of Appeals
- 1992-1995: General counsel, AAA Michigan
- 1977-1992: Attorney/partner, Dickinson, Wright, Moon, Van Dusen & Freeman[12]
Awards and associations
Awards
- 2001: Honorary degree, Michigan State University
- 1999: Honorary degree, Central Michigan University
- 1999: Alumnus of the Year, Detroit Country Day School[12]
Associations
- Former trustee, Detroit Institute of Children
- Former trustee, The Detroit Historical Society
- Former member, Governor's Task Force on Children's Justice Concerning Child Abuse and Neglect[12]
Elections
2018
Young withdrew from the race on January 3, 2018.[1]
2010
- See also: Michigan judicial elections, 2010
Young was re-elected to the court on November 2, 2010. He received 27.88 percent of the total votes and defeated former Justice Alton Davis, 6th Circuit Court Judge Denise Langford-Morris, and Bob Roddis.[6] Though Michigan judicial elections are nonpartisan, Young was nominated as a candidate at the Republican Party convention.[13]
Endorsements
- Michigan Supreme Court Justices Maura D. Corrigan and Stephen J. Markman
- Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox
- Former Governor John Engler
- Police Officers Association of Michigan
- Michigan State Medical Society
- Shooters' Alliance for Firearms Rights
- Michigan Right To Life
- Michigan Chamber of Commerce [14]
Approach to the law
Young is a "judicial conservative." According to his campaign website, he "believes that judges should apply the Constitution and laws as written and that judges have no authority to impose their policy preferences on those that the People have written into their Constitution or their elected representatives have enacted into law."[15]
Possible Donald Trump nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court
2018
Young was listed by President Donald Trump (R) as a potential Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy announced he would retire from the court effective July 31, 2018.[16] Trump ultimately chose Brett Kavanaugh as the nominee. Click here to learn more.
2017
On November 17, 2017, Young was included in a third list of individuals from which President Donald Trump would choose to fill vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court.
A White House statement announcing the nominees stated,[17]
| “ |
One year ago, President Donald J. Trump was elected to restore the rule of law and to Make the Judiciary Great Again. Following the successful confirmation of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States and the nomination of more than seventy Federal judges—including five individuals from his Supreme Court list—President Trump today announced that he is refreshing his Supreme Court list with five additional judges. President Trump will choose a nominee for a future Supreme Court vacancy, should one arise, from this updated list of 25 individuals. The President remains deeply committed to identifying and selecting outstanding jurists in the mold of Justice Gorsuch. These additions, like those on the original list released more than a year ago, were selected with input from respected conservative leaders.[18] |
” |
Noteworthy cases
Court finds Civil Service Commission has no authority to allow agency fees
Unions in Michigan filed a lawsuit against Michigan officials, seeking a declaratory judgment that parts of Michigan’s Right to Work law were unconstitutional as applied to employees in the classified state civil service. The law at issue stated that employees could not be required to join a union or pay any union-related fees. Under the Michigan Constitution, Michigan’s classified state civil service is administered by the Michigan Civil Service Commission. The commission’s rules allow employees in classified state civil service to engage in collective bargaining agreements that require employees who opt out of union membership to pay a fee. The fee is often referred to as an agency fee and is intended to defray some of the union’s cost of representing those employees. The plaintiffs argued that the prohibition of agency fees "cannot apply to the commission because it infringes on the commission’s constitutional mandate to ‘regulate all conditions of employment’ for civil servants.”[19]
In an opinion authored by then-Chief Justice Young, a majority of the Michigan Supreme Court found that even setting aside the Right to Work law, “allowing the imposition of mandatory agency shop fees upon civil servants is beyond the commission’s constitutional authority.” Young noted that the commission was required to regulate all conditions of employment and reasoned that collective bargaining agreements were a tool through which the commission accomplished its work. Therefore, he argued, any fee paid to unions under a collective bargaining agreement was essentially a fee that supported the commission’s administrative responsibilities, even though the fee was not paid or passed on to the commission. And under the Constitution, he continued, the commission “lacks the authority to tax or appropriate—to wit, the authority to compel civil service employees to make involuntary financial contributions to subsidize the commission’s exercise of its constitutional duties.” Because the court determined that the commission did not have the constitutional authority to allow agency fees, it did not address the plaintiffs’ arguments over the Right to Work law.[19]
Justice Mary Beth Kelly dissented. Kelly emphasized that the fees at issue “are paid directly to an employee’s exclusive representative, not to the commission, the employer, or any other public entity.” Further, she argued, “There has been no finding—not even an allegation—that agency fees fund [the commission’s] regulatory efforts.” Therefore, she wrote, she would have upheld the commission’s rule allowing agency fees and ruled that the Right to Work law’s prohibition of agency fees did not apply to classified civil service employees.[19]
Political ideology
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
Young received a campaign finance score of 0.84, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of 0.05 that justices received in Michigan.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[20]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Robert Young Michigan Senate. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
- MLive.com, "Michigan Supreme Court rules in pair of FOIA cases," July 17, 2008
- Los Angeles Times, "Michigan voter ID law OKd," July 19, 2007
- American Medical News, "Michigan high court lets physician sue over bad peer review," September 18, 2006
- The Wall Street Journal, "Trial Lawyers Target Three Michigan Judges Up for Election," May 8, 2000
- Free Press, "Michigan justice facing re-election admits using N-word," October 23, 2010
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Midland Daily News, "Young announces unofficial run for U.S. Senate," June 19, 2017
- ↑ Detroit Free Press, "Michigan Republicans lose big name in bid to oust Stabenow from Senate," January 3, 2018
- ↑ CBS News, "Trump says Justice Kennedy's replacement will come from list of 25," June 27, 2018
- ↑ FindLaw, "Trump Revises His Supreme Court Picks," September 26, 2016
- ↑ Michigan Department of State, "2002 election results"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Michigan Department of State, "2010 Unofficial General Election Results: Supreme Court"
- ↑ The Detroit News, "Retired Justice Young lobbied to challenge Stabenow," April 21, 2017
- ↑ The Detroit News, "Michigan Supreme Court picks Young as chief justice," January 5, 2011
- ↑ M Live, "Michigan Supreme Court keeps Robert Young Jr. as chief justice," January 2, 2013
- ↑ Michigan Courts News Release, "Chief Justice Robert P. Young, Jr. Selected Again to Lead Michigan Supreme Court," January 7, 2015
- ↑ Project Vote Smart, "Justice Robert P. Young, Jr. (MI)"
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Michigan Courts, "Chief Justice Robert P. Young, Jr.," accessed September 23, 2016
- ↑ Oakland Press, "Four people running in race for Michigan Supreme Court," October 16, 2010
- ↑ Justice Young's campaign site: Endorsements (dead link)
- ↑ Bob Young campaign website, "About"
- ↑ CBS News, "Trump says Justice Kennedy's replacement will come from list of 25," June 27, 2018
- ↑ The White House, "President Donald J. Trump Announces Five Additions to Supreme Court List," November 17, 2017
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Michigan Supreme Court, UAW v. Green Opinion, filed July 29, 2015
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
