Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge Ginina A. Jackson-Stevenson, left, Baltimore County Circuit Court judge James Rhodes, center, and Baltimore attorney William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr. after a Legislative Black Caucus meeting Thursday. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
The Legislative Black Caucus debated all sides of a bill that would do away with contested elections for circuit court judges, but came away without a clear direction for its members.
The robust debate Thursday included appearances on opposite sides of the issue by former U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Willliams Jr. and prominent Baltimore attorney William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr., as well as back-and-forth between the members themselves.
Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Montgomery) said that the caucus is “considering taking a formal position” on the issue, but that no decision has been made.
“We had a meeting today that I think was very informative to the members,” said Wilkins, the caucus chair, after the meeting. “We got to hear different sides of the issue. We’ll take it from there to determine if we’re going to have a formal stance or not.”
After their initial appointment, most judges in Maryland stand every 10 years for “retention” elections, in which voters decide whether they should remain on the bench or not. Circuit court judges are the only judges in Maryland that can face challengers at the polls when they stand for reelection, which happens every 15 years.
Critics say the process puts supposedly impartial judges in the awkward position of running as partisans. But defenders say it has been the only way for Blacks, women, Latinos and other marginalized groups to win seats on the bench, by going around the old-boys network that appoints most judges in the state and running for office directly.
The question for caucus members Thursday was whether those days are in the past, or whether contested elections are still needed to guarantee diversity on the bench.
Williams said times have changed. He co-chaired a judicial work group that studied the issue for almost two years before recommending that contested elections be ended. The task force report found that, as of April 2024, about 31% of the 169 circuit judges in the state were Black and 51% were women, Williams noted.
“To force Black women, in particular, to have to run in [contested elections] it just affects them,” Williams said of the challenges of contested elections, particularly in the current political environment.
But Murphy — who won a contested race for Baltimore City Circuit judge in 1980, before leaving the bench after about three years — said it’s because of contested races that the circuit court bench is more diverse today.
“My brother, Alex, and I get along real fine. But he’s just as wrong as he can be on this,” said Murphy to some laughs in the room.
“He wants to give away the power we have,” said Murphy, who served on the judicial work group with Williams. “Do Black people have enough power as it is? I think we all know the answer to that.”
Because it would require a constitutional amendment to change the way judges are elected, the work group’s report recommended putting the question to voters in November 2026. Senate Bill 630/House Bill 778 would do that, putting the issue on the ballot next year. Both bills have had hearings, but no committee votes yet.
The work group report said that about 76 bills have been introduced since the 1980s to change the way circuit judges are elected. None have passed, but Montgomery County Circuit Judge Kathleen Dumais, who was a state legislator for nearly two decades before being appointed to the bench, said she is hopeful about this year’s effort.
“I don’t think any of the committees ever voted for it [judicial election bills] in all of the years I was in the legislature,” said Dumais, who served as co-chair of the work group with Williams. “The issue has been around for so long. I think it’s time to let the citizens decide.”
One of the recommendations in the work group’s report called for more transparency for the judicial nominating committees that vet judicial candidates and forward names to the governor for appointment.
It also recommended that the nominating commissions seek input from the public and specialty bar associations, like those established around race, gender, legal specialty and sexual orientation.
Those nominating commissions are mainly comprised of lawyers, which one former circuit judge candidate called “cliquish” at last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Del. N. Scott Phillips (D-Baltimore County) on Thursday called the judicial nomination process “flawed” and “not diverse.”
Phillips and others noted that Gov. Wes Moore (D) is seeking to maintain a diverse Maryland judiciary, noting his December reappointment of Anne Arundel County Judge Ginina A. Jackson-Stevenson, a Black judge who lost her seat to a challenger in the November general election.
“If our wonderful governor goes away tomorrow and we get somebody that is more like the person that’s in the White House, we got a problem,” Phillips said.
Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, supports the measures and so do the specialty bars. Some legal groups that submitted written testimony in support of the bills include the Maryland State Bar Association, Maryland Association of Justice and Prince George’s County Bar Association.
“The product we’ve got is the most diverse bench that we’ve ever had in terms of gender and Blacks,” Smith said. “Elections were the only way we were getting on the bench. Today, the inverse is actually true.”