Maryland Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew J. Fader testifies before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in support of legislation to get rid of contested elections for circuit court judge. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
Maryland Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew Fader and Carroll County Circuit Judge Maria L. Oesterreicher agree that the state’s current system of choosing circuit court judges at the ballot box allows for the broadest possible pool of candidates.
They disagree on whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
That was the crux of arguments that stretched over several hours of testimony Wednesday, as Senate and House committees held back-to-back hearings on a proposed constitutional amendment to change the way circuit judges are selected.
District and appellate judges in the state stand every 10 years for retention elections — voters give a thumbs up or down on whether the judge should continue on the bench. But circuit judges stand for election every 15 years, and when they do they can face challengers who file to run against them, just like candidates in any other political race.
Critics say the system opens the door to unqualified candidates and forces sitting judges to act like partisan candidates instead of impartial jurists.
“This is a bill that is aimed at increasing public trust and confidence in the judiciary, minimizing perceived conflicts and ensuring that every judge in the state has been thoroughly vetted and found most fully qualified by a neutral panel before taking office,” Fader said to the Senate committee.
But supporters say the system gives voters a full voice in the selection of judges, and that contested elections increase diversity on the bench by opening the door to candidates who are not part of the network of lawyers who nominate judges. Oesterreicher cites herself as a case in point.
“I remain the only female that has ever been placed on our circuit court,” Oesterreicher, who won in a 2018 election, said of the Carroll County bench. “This [a proposed constitutional amendment] is not the proper way to fix the issue of judicial selections.”
The hearings Wednesday before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on Senate Bill 630 and the House Judiciary Committee on House Bill 778 are the latest in a decades-long fight over contested circuit judge elections. More than 75 bills have been introduced since the 1980s to change the process, all unsuccessful so far.
But the debate was renewed almost three years ago, when the Maryland Judicial Conference appointed a judicial work group to study the issue. After nearly two years of study, the group released a 63-page report last year which concluded that contested elections present ethical concerns and pose a risk to judges’ safety in the current political atmosphere.
It recommended doing away with the process and making circuit judges face retention elections every 10 years, like all other judges in the state.
In both the House and Senate hearings, Maryland State Bar Association President Raphael Santini, a supporter of the bills, pointed to former Prince George’s County Circuit Judge April Ademiluyi, who won the judgeship by unseating sitting Judge Jared M. McCarthy in the 2020 election. But by 2023, Ademiluyi had been charged with violating multiple provisions of the Maryland Code of Judicial Conduct.
After an investigation by the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities, the Maryland Supreme Court in May 2024 ordered Ademiluyi removed from the bench for engaging in “egregious misconduct.”
Critics of the current system said it allows candidates like Ademiluyi to bypass a vetting process by local commissions of lawyers. Those commissions review the credentials of would-be judges and recommend nominees to the governor, who makes the initial appointment of judges — with Senate confirmation — when there is a vacancy on the bench.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge Kathleen Dumais, a state delegate for nearly two decades and co-chair of the judicial work group, said the commissions help make sure the governor receives a list of qualified candidates “who reflect the community.”
To make sure that nominees reflect their communities, former U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. — who co-chaired the work group with Dumais — said at the Senate hearing that the report recommends that vetting commissions seek input from the public and specialty bars. Those bars are associations of attorneys established by race, gender, legal specialty and sexual orientation.
But hours later in the House hearing, Del. Aaron M. Kaufman (D-Montgomery) asked Claudia Barber, an opponent to the judicial bill, if she thinks the judicial nominating committees and the legal establishment “is somewhat clubby.”
“Yes, it is clubby, and to a certain degree, it is also political,” said Barber, who ran unsuccessfully for an Anne Arundel County Circuit judgeship in 2016 and 2024. “It’s cliquish. It’s all of that. Which is why oftentimes the best is not always chosen.”
Rob Daniels, who ran an unsuccessful circuit court campaign last year in Baltimore County, testified that the judiciary still does not include anyone from the LGBTQ+ community.
“The impetus for this bill seems to be the false conclusion by the judicial selections work group that we’ve resolved the diversity issue so popular elections are no longer needed,” said Daniels, chair of the LGBTQ Bar Association. “But the work group has moved the goal posts in the diversity fight by ignoring the dearth of LGBTQ judges in our state.”
A few lawmakers asked whether it’s a good idea to restrict voters’ voices in the selection of circuit judges.
“Whenever we start having these discussions about taking away the public input and we leave it at the discretion of solely the governor…then the people that I represent aren’t getting their fair input into the discussion,” said Sen. William G. Folden (R-Frederick).
If the measure passes, the question would go to voters in the November 2026 election, to decide whether to amend the Maryland Constitution to make the change.
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