Zel Fischer
2008 - Present
2034
17
Zel Fischer is a judge of the Missouri Supreme Court. He assumed office in 2008. His current term ends on December 31, 2034.
Fischer ran for re-election for judge of the Missouri Supreme Court. He won in the retention election on November 8, 2022.
Fischer first became a member of the Missouri Supreme Court through a gubernatorial appointment. He was first appointed to the court in October 2008 by Gov. Matt Blunt (R).[1] To read more about judicial selection in Missouri, 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.[2] Fischer received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[3] Click here to read more about this study.
Fischer served as chief justice of the court from 2017 to 2019.[4]
Biography
Fischer received his B.A. in philosophy and political science from William Jewell College in 1985 and his J.D. from the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Law, 1988. Prior to joining the court, Fischer worked in private practice. He clerked for Justice Andrew Jackson Higgins from 1988 to 1989.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: Missouri Supreme Court elections, 2022
Missouri Supreme Court, Zel Fischer's seat
Zel Fischer was retained to the Missouri Supreme Court on November 8, 2022 with 68.0% of the vote.
Retention Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
| ✔ | Yes |
68.0
|
1,211,424 | ||
No |
32.0
|
569,032 | |||
Total Votes |
1,780,456 | ||||
|
|
2010
- See also: Missouri judicial elections, 2010
Fischer was retained on November 2, 2010, receiving 66.4% of the vote.
Performance evaluation
Click here to read Justice Fischer's performance evaluation from the Appellate Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee.
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Zel Fischer did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.
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.[5]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[6]
- 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.
Zel
Fischer
Missouri
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Assisted appointment through hybrid judicial nominating commission - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Republican before 2020
- Donated less than $2,000 to Republican candidates
- Appointed by a Republican governor
Partisan Profile
Details:
Fischer was registered as a Republican prior to 2020. He donated $1,990 to Republican candidates and organizations. Fischer was appointed by Gov. Matt Blunt (R). At the time of his appointment, Missouri was a Republican trifecta.
Other Scores:
In a 2012 study of campaign contributions, Fischer received a campaign finance score of 0.83, indicating a conservative ideological leaning.
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.
Fischer received a campaign finance score of 0.83, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of 0.001 that justices received in Missouri.
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.[7]
Noteworthy cases
Supreme Court rules that Missouri’s constitutional right to farm does not include a right to farm marijuana (December 2017)
In 2014, voters in Missouri approved Amendment 1, which stated, “The right of farmers and ranchers to engage in farming and ranching practices shall be forever guaranteed in this state.” Mark Shanklin, arrested after police found 300 marijuana plants in his home, argued before the Missouri Supreme Court that the voter-approved amendment provided him with a right to farm marijuana.[8] Amendment 1, he contended, prohibited the state legislature from deciding what can and cannot be grown in Missouri. He noted that Amendment 1 did not define what counts as farming.
On December 5, 2017, the state Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ruled against Shanklin, saying that Amendment 1 did not provide a right to farm marijuana. Chief Justice Fischer, who wrote the opinion, said, “Article I, section 35 protects the right to engage in lawful farming and ranching practices. It does not create a new constitutional right to engage in the illegal drug trade.”[9]
State supreme court judicial selection in Missouri
- See also: Judicial selection in Missouri
The seven justices of the Missouri Supreme Court are chosen through assisted appointment in which the governor selects a nominee from a list provided by a nominating commission. When a vacancy occurs, a list of potential candidates is compiled by the Missouri Appellate Judicial Commission and narrowed to three choices. From those three candidates, the governor appoints a new judge. After the newly appointed judge serves for at least one year, they must stand for retention in the next general election. If retained, they serve twelve-year terms.[10]
Qualifications
To serve on the supreme court, a judge must be:
- a U.S. citizen for at least 15 years;
- a qualified state voter for at least nine years;
- licensed to practice law in the state;
- over the age of 30; and
- under the age of 70 (retirement at 70 is mandatory).[10]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the supreme court serves a two-year term and is elected by a peer vote.[10]
Vacancies
When a vacancy occurs, a list of potential candidates is compiled by the Missouri Appellate Judicial Commission and narrowed to three choices. From those three candidates, the governor appoints a new judge. After the newly appointed judge serves for at least one year, they must stand for retention in the next general election. If retained, they serve twelve-year terms.[10]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Missouri Courts, "Judge Zel M. Fischer," accessed August 5, 2021
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ KMA Land, "Atchison County native named Missouri's next chief justice," July 3, 2017
- ↑ 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
- ↑ Missouri Lawyers Weekly, "Right to farm doesn’t include pot, court says," December 6, 2017
- ↑ Missouri Supreme Court, "Missouri v. Shanklin" Opinion, December 5, 2017
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed September 7, 2021
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