Michigan Supreme Court | Susan J. Demas
With four candidates on the ballot for the Michigan Supreme Court, nothing less than control of the chamber on the line.
Although races for the state’s highest court appear on the nonpartisan ballot — and are not included in straight-ticket voting — the Democratic and Republican parties nominate candidates at their respective conventions in August. And in recent years, the Michigan Supreme Court has had to make key decisions on issues with big partisan divides, such as minimum wage, the governor’s powers during emergencies like the pandemic and whether the 2022 abortion rights constitutional amendment would appear on the ballot.
Michigan is the only state that uses this method, which it has employed since 1908, and which has been criticized as a “non-partisan-in-name-only process.” Despite several attempts through the years to change it, the process remains intact.
Viviano’s planned retirement from Michigan Supreme Court opens up race for 2024 GOP nomination
The Michigan Constitution requires that Supreme Court candidates be “qualified electors, licensed to practice law in Michigan, and, at the time of election, must be under 70 years of age.”
Currently the court stands with a 4-3 majority of justices nominated by Democrats.
The potential results on Nov. 5 run the gamut from expanding the current Democratic-nominated majority, keeping it as is, or flipping command to Republican-nominated justices.
There are two separate races on the ballot for voters to decide: one for a full eight-year term and another for a partial four-year term.
The race for the eight-year term opened up with the decision by GOP-nominated Justice David Viviano to not seek reelection. Running for that spot are two candidates with no experience on the bench: state Rep. Andrew Fink (R-Adams Twp.), who was nominated by the Republican Party, and University of Michigan law professor Kimberly Ann Thomas, a Democratic nominee.
The partial, four-year term features incumbent Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, a Democratic nominee who was appointed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to the court in 2023 to fill a vacancy, running for reelection against GOP-nominated Branch County Circuit Court Judge Patrick William O’Grady.
Should both Bolden and Thomas both win their respective races, the Democrats’ majority will grow to a 5-2 advantage. If Fink and O’Grady were to both win, the chamber’s majority would flip to a 4-3 advantage for GOP-nominated justices, while a split would preserve the status quo.
The money advantage
The two candidates nominated by the Michigan Democratic Party have overwhelmingly outraised the candidates nominated by the Michigan Republican Party, accumulating a nearly nine times advantage.
Campaign finance reports show Bolden leading the way, having raised just over $1.3 million dollars through Sept. 13, with Thomas right behind at about an even million dollars. In contrast, Fink raised $160,647 while O’Grady took in just under $104,000.
That advantage allowed Bolden and Thomas to purchase $1.5 million in TV advertising, the largest TV ad buy ever made by Supreme Court candidates in Michigan.
Additionally, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, and the ACLU Voter Education Fund, are spending $2 million on a series of voter education radio ads.
While the ACLU and ACLU Voter Education Fund are nonpartisan and do not support or oppose candidates for office nor contribute to their campaigns, the issues they are advocating for clearly favor the priorities of the Democratic Party, which nominated Bolden and Thomas.
“The court has the highest legal authority in the state. Their decisions shape civil rights and liberties, including reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, disability rights, privacy rights, and more. This is the first time the Voter Education Fund has invested in a Michigan Supreme Court race,” stated a press release.
Democratic political consultant Mike Radtke, who is also a Sterling Heights city councilman, told the Advance that the money advantage definitely helps get your message out, but only moves the needle if the message itself resonates with voters.
“The court’s losing, I think, the best conservative justice they have on there, David Viviano,” said Radtke. “He always took a very moderate, middle-of-the-road approach, in my opinion, to the issues that matter. And instead of replacing them with moderates, the Republicans took a hard turn to the right, and I think that’s to their detriment.”
Here’s a look at the candidates:
UM professor and trial lawyer Kimberly Thomas talks to the Arab American Democrats Caucus in Lansing ahead of receiving the Michigan Democratic Party’s official nomination for state Supreme Court on Aug. 24, 2024 | Photo Anna Liz Nichols
Kimberly Ann Thomas, eight-year term
Thomas is a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School, where she is the director and co-founder of the Juvenile Justice Clinic. She also teaches in the Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic and specializes in trial and appellate practice, youth justice, and criminal sentencing law.
After receiving a bachelor’s of science in journalism and economics degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, Thomas worked for a time in journalism, before going to Harvard Law School, where she got her law degree in 1999.
She was also a Fulbright Scholar who taught at the University College Cork School of Law in Ireland, and serves as an expert for the American Bar Association (ABA) Rule of Law Initiative, which helps to build judicial systems and legal professions in developing democracies.
“I’ve done many, many cases in our state trial courts all the way up to the Michigan Supreme Court, and so I have a deep understanding of how our court system works in practice,” Thomas told the Advance. “And so I think that balance of both a practical understanding of our courts and the ability to do the sort of careful in-depth research with integrity that our court needs is why I think I’m the best candidate.”
In 2021, Whitmer appointed Thomas to the bipartisan Michigan Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform which took a data-centered look at the state’s juvenile justice system and then made recommendations for improvement.
Thomas says that model is something she would hope to see more of at all levels of the judiciary.
“That was a bipartisan task force that looked across our state court system and looked at, of course, one area of law in terms of how we could improve that based on data and research,” she said. “I think that’s a great model. I think that there are a lot of places where we really can work to make our court systems better for everyone.”
Thomas is endorsed by organizations including the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, Reproductive Freedom for All, United Auto Workers (UAW), the Michigan AFL-CIO, Michigan Nurses Association, and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan.
Personal endorsements for Thomas include both of Michigan’s U.S. senators, Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) and Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Twp.), as well as former Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack, and current Justices Kyra Harris Bolden, Elizabeth Welch and Megan Cavanaugh.
Rep. Andrew Fink (R-Hillsdale) at a Michigan House Judiciary Committee March 1, 2023 hearing on gun reform legislation. | Photo by Anna Gustafson
Andrew Fink, eight-year term
Fink, who did not respond to a request by the Advance for an interview, graduated from Hillsdale College in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in Politics, before earning his law degree from U of M in 2010.
Fink joined the U.S. Marines, serving as a judge advocate from 2011 to 2014, before leaving as a Captain. He then went into private practice with his family’s law firm, Fink and Fink, before winning election to the Michigan House in 2020.
Fink currently represents the 35th District, which covers both Hillsdale and Branch counties, and serves as House minority assistant floor leader.
Fink, on his campaign website, says his time in the House has been spent with a commitment to defending the rights of citizens and adhering to the constitutional system of separation of powers.
“Nowhere is this more crucial than in our judiciary, and especially in the highest judicial body in our state, the Michigan Supreme Court,” said Fink. “By ensuring that duty and honor are held in high esteem within our judiciary, we can reverse the declining faith in our governing institutions caused by activist judges and special interests abusing our court system. Our state needs justices who will not waver from their duty of upholding the Constitution, maintaining the separation of powers in government, and defending our constitutional freedom.”
Fink is endorsed by organizations including the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Businesses, National Federation of Independent Businesses, and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
Among his personal endorsements are former Michigan Gov. John Engler, Republican Michigan Attorneys General Bill Schuette and Mike Cox, as well as most of his GOP colleagues in the House.
Michigan Circuit Court Judge Patrick O’Grady, one of the state Republican party’s picks to run for the state supreme court stands in a crowd ahead of former President Donald Trump speaking at a rally at Alro Steel in Potterville, Michigan on Aug. 29, 2024 | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols
Patrick William O’Grady, four-year term
O’Grady earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University in 1993 before going to Cooley Law School, where he received his law degree in 1999.
He became a Michigan State Police trooper, serving from 1995 to 2001, taking courses while still serving out of the MSP Metro North Post.
O’Grady then became an assistant prosecuting attorney in Branch County until he won election to the 15th Circuit Court bench, and was reelected twice, in 2014 and 2020. In that time, O’Grady told the Advance that he presided over 14,000 cases that have covered the gamut from civil cases to high felonies.
O’Grady says his experience on the bench is something that is lacking on the current court.
“Out of the seven justices, we now have only two that have actually been a judge before going on to the Supreme Court bench,” he noted, referring to Justices Viviano and Brian Zahra. “When I talk about that to the public, people’s jaws literally hit the ground. They’re surprised. They assume that to be on the Supreme Court that you would have had to have been a judge before and presided over cases.”
With Viviano retiring, and Zahra serving his final term due to age limits, O’Grady thinks that bench experience will be needed even more than ever.
“We potentially could have an entire court where no one has ever judged a case, never been a judge, and never has had that level of experience, repetition, or capacity,” said O’Grady.
And while his opponent, Bolden, does have two years on the court under her belt, O’Grady says the diversity of his experience is what stands out.
“I’m a judge who basically has presided over a murder case, a kidnapping case, robbery, and rape. I’m a judge that has held defendants accountable for the havoc and terrorizing of our most vulnerable women, children, and the elderly, and all victims of crime. And to not have that experience on the Supreme Court, I think, is detrimental to public safety. I think it’s detrimental to protecting families, protecting the rights, and protecting Michigan,” he said.
Organizations that have endorsed O’Grady include the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, Michigan Manufacturers Association, National Federation of Independent Business, and the Michigan Farm Bureau. Personal endorsements include that of former President Donald Trump, although O’Grady doesn’t list that on his campaign website.
Justice Kyra Harris Bolden on Dec. 7, 2022. (Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)
Kyra Harris Bolden, four-year term
A 2014 graduate of the University of Detroit’s Mercy School of Law, Bolden worked as a civil litigator in Lansing, a staff attorney for the 3rd Circuit Court of Wayne County, and as a court-appointed criminal defense attorney in her hometown of Southfield, before winning election to the Michigan House in 2018. She was subsequently reelected in 2020 for a second term.
Bolden was a candidate for Michigan Supreme Court in 2022, but lost that year by 2 points to Zahra for a full eight-year term. However, after McCormack stepped down in 2022 just two years into her eight-year term, Bolden was appointed by Whitmer, making her the first Black woman to serve on the court. She’s also the sole Supreme Court candidate this year able to be listed as an incumbent justice.
Bolden is now running to serve the last four years of McCormack’s term.
When asked what she had learned from her first unsuccessful campaign, Bolden told the Advance that perhaps the biggest lesson was timing.
“The biggest tweak is not being pregnant,” said Bolden,” who was five months pregnant with her daughter, Emerson, when she announced her candidacy in April of that year.
“I think the most important thing was just starting earlier and making sure that we had a very clear plan for the entire cycle, where as in 2022, I was admittedly kind of building the plane as I was flying it because I didn’t know I was going to run a statewide race,” said Bolden.
Bolden says her time on the court has also made her a better candidate.
“I think it’s very important that I can tell voters what I have done on the bench and be really, really clear and specific about that,” she said. “So it’s not just the type of jurist that I will be, but I can explain that to folks now from the perspective of someone sitting in the seat while also running a campaign, the difficulties of that, but how I’m still showing up for Michiganders, putting an enormous effort into the job to make very thoughtful decisions. I think that that’s an important aspect, as well.”
Boldrn also believes her experience as a defense attorney brings a wider lens to view the cases that come before the court.
“That’s a perspective that isn’t often brought to the judiciary. Usually, the perspective is of a prosecutor, which there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think a diversity of perspectives and experiences is best,” she said, adding that it is especially so for the state’s highest court.
“I think that perspective is very important when we’re talking about the Michigan Supreme Court, where we’re the final word, and you’re talking about laws that were crafted by legislators that represent each part of Michigan,” she said. “I believe that the Michigan Supreme Court should reflect that diversity and experience and background of Michiganders.”
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