Bill Mims
Bill Mims was a judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia. He assumed office on April 1, 2010. He left office on March 31, 2022.
Mims was appointed to the Virginia Supreme Court by the General Assembly on March 10, 2010.[1] He was sworn in to the court on April 9, 2010.[2] To read more about judicial selection in Virginia, click here.
Mims did not seek re-appointment after his term expired on March 31, 2022.[3] To learn about this vacancy, 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.[4] Mims received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[5] Click here to read more about this study.
Education
Mims received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary in 1979 and his J.D. from George Washington University in 1984. He also earned an LL.M. from Georgetown University in 1986.[1][6][7]
He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1992 to 1997, and was a member of the Virginia Senate from 1998 to 2005. He was an adjunct professor of law at George Mason University from 2002 to 2005, and in 2006 became the deputy attorney general under Robert McDonnell (R). He served in this role until 2009 when he became the attorney general of Virginia. Mims was attorney general of Virginia until 2010. He became a justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia in 2010. Mims was also a partner in Hunton & Williams, an attorney with Mims, Atwill & Leigh, chief of staff for Rep. Frank Wolf (R), and deputy legislative director to Sen. Paul Trible.[1][6]
Mims served on the Virginia Bar Association's Board of Governors from 2002 to 2004. He has also served on the boards of Lead Virginia, Richmond Behavioral Health Authority, and Voices for Virginia's Children.[1]
Appointments
2010
Mims was elected to the Supreme Court of Virginia in 2010 by the Virginia General Assembly.
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.[8]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[9]
- 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.
Bill
Mims
Virginia
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Direct legislative appointment - Key Factors:
- Donated over $2,000 to Republican candidates
- Held political office as a Republican
- Was a registered Republican before 2020
Partisan Profile
Details:
Mims was Attorney General of Virginia (R) from 2009 to 2010, deputy attorney general under Robert McDonnell (R) from 2006 to 2010, and a Republican member of the Virginia Senate from 1998 to 2005. His campaign committee, Friends of Bill Mims, donated $48,003 to Republican candidates.
Other Scores:
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
- See also: [Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores of state supreme court justices, 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.
Mims received a campaign finance score of 0.41, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of 0.11 that justices received in Virginia.
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.[10]
State supreme court judicial selection in Virginia
- See also: Judicial selection in Virginia
The seven justices of the supreme court are elected by a majority vote of both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly.[11] Supreme court justices serve 12-year terms. At the end of their terms, judges must be re-selected by the legislature just as they initially were.[11]
Qualifications
To serve on the supreme court, a judge must be:
- a state resident; and
- a state bar member for at least five years.[12]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the court is selected by peer vote. The supreme court chief justice serves in that capacity for four years.[13]
Vacancies
When the General Assembly is in session, midterm vacancies are filled by the same legislative selection process normally used to select judges. When the assembly is not in session, the governor appoints a replacement to serve until 30 days after the start of the next session, by which point a judge must be elected to the seat.[14][15]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Bloomberg "William C Mims," accessed July26, 2021
- ↑ Times-Dispatch "Mims sworn in as Supreme Court justice," archived June 11, 2010
- ↑ Richmond Times-Dispatch, "Justice Mims is leaving Virginia Supreme Court next year," accessed April 1, 2022
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Virginia State Bar, "Deputy Attorney General Bill Mims To Speak at Solo & Small-Firm Legal Forum in Danville," April 19, 2006
- ↑ Project Vote Smart, "Bill Mims profile," accessed July 26, 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
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Commonwealth of Virginia Division of Legislatie Services, "A Legislator's Guide to the Judicial Selection Process," accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
- ↑ Commonwealth of Virginia Division of Legislative Services, Judicial Selection Overview, accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
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