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Thomas Balmer
Thomas Balmer was a judge for Position 1 of the Oregon Supreme Court. He assumed office in 2001. He left office on January 1, 2023.
Balmer won re-election for the Position 1 judge of the Oregon Supreme Court outright in the primary on May 19, 2020, after the general election was canceled.
Balmer was first appointed to the court by Governor John Kitzhaber (D) in 2001. He was subsequently elected to the court in a nonpartisan election in 2002. On October 3, 2022, Balmer announced he would retire on December 31, 2022.[1][2] To learn more about this vacancy, click here.
Balmer served as chief justice from 2012 to 2018.[3][4]
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.[5] Balmer received a confidence score of Strong Democrat.[6] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Balmer received a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1974 and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1977.[7] Prior to his service on the Oregon Supreme Court, he worked as an attorney in private practice from 1997 to 2001, 1980 to 1993, and 1977 to 1979. He worked as a deputy attorney general with the Oregon Attorney General's office from 1993 to 1997 and as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division from 1979 to 1980.[2]
Elections
2020
See also: Oregon Supreme Court elections, 2020
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Oregon Supreme Court Position 1
Incumbent Thomas Balmer won election outright against Van Pounds in the primary for Oregon Supreme Court Position 1 on May 19, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Thomas Balmer (Nonpartisan) | 70.8 | 727,421 |
 | Van Pounds (Nonpartisan) | 28.8 | 295,887 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.4 | 3,638 | ||
| Total votes: 1,026,946 | |||
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2014
- See also: Oregon judicial elections, 2014
Balmer ran for re-election to the Oregon Supreme Court. He was elected without opposition in the primary on May 20, 2014.[8]
2008
Balmer ran unopposed for re-election to the supreme court on May 20, 2008.[8]
2002
Balmer ran unopposed for re-election to the supreme court on May 21, 2002.[8]
Balmer raised $43,259 for his 2002 campaign.[9]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
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.[10]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[11]
- 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.
Thomas
Balmer
Oregon
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Strong Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Democrat as of 2020
- Donated over $2,000 to Democratic candidates
- Held political office as a Democrat
Partisan Profile
Details:
Balmer was appointed by Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) to fill a vacancy. Balmer was a registered Democrat at the time of his appointment. He donated $6,500 to Democratic candidates. He was Deputy Attorney General in the Oregon Attorney General's Office from 1993 to 1997 while the Attorney General was a Democrat. He was endorsed by the Deschutes Democrats.
Other Scores:
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
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.
Balmer received a campaign finance score of -0.91, indicating a liberal ideological leaning. This was less liberal than the average score of -1.00 that justices received in Oregon.
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.[12]
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Thomas Balmer did not complete Ballotpedia's 2020 Candidate Connection survey.
State supreme court judicial selection in Oregon
- See also: Judicial selection in Oregon
The seven justices on the Oregon Supreme Court are selected through nonpartisan elections.[13] Judges' terms begin on the first Monday in January following their election.[14]
Judges serve six-year terms. Judges seeking to serve more than one term must stand for re-election.[13]
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a judge must be:
- a U.S. citizen;
- a state resident for at least three years;
- a state bar member; and
- under the age of 75.[13]
Chief justice
The chief justice is selected by peer vote and serves in that capacity for a six-year term.
Vacancies
If a midterm vacancy occurs on the court, the governor appoints a replacement. The appointee serves until the next general election occurring 61 or more days after the vacancy, at which point he or she may run for election.[13] The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
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Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Portland Tribune, "Justice Thomas Balmer retires from Oregon Supreme Court," October 3, 2022
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Oregon Judicial Department, "Biography - Justice Thomas A. Balmer," accessed July 7, 2021
- ↑ OregonLive.com, "State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Balmer to become Oregon's next chief justice," January 20, 2012
- ↑ Oregon Judicial Department, "Press Release, Justice Thomas Balmer Elected as Next Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice," January 20, 2012
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ Project Vote Smart, "Thomas Balmer's Biography," accessed July 7, 2021
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Oregon Secretary of State, "Election History," accessed July 7, 2021
- ↑ Followthemoney.org, "Thomas Balmer campaign finances - 2002," accessed July 7, 2021
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: Oregon," archived October 3, 2014
- ↑ Oregon State Legislature, "Oregon Constitution," accessed August 29, 2014
Federal courts:
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: District of Oregon • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: District of Oregon
State courts:
Oregon Supreme Court • Oregon Court of Appeals • Oregon Circuit Courts • Oregon Tax Court • Oregon County Courts • Oregon Justice Courts • Oregon Municipal Courts
State resources:
Courts in Oregon • Oregon judicial elections • Judicial selection in Oregon
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