Campaign money and influence: It's time for Oregon to reform judicial selections

Oregonian (editorial):

Imagine that you are injured by a large corporation. You sue to recover the costs of your medical care and other damages. You win at trial, the case goes up on appeal, and you find yourself before the Oregon Supreme Court. There, you learn that the same corporation that injured you spent millions of dollars last year to elect the judge who may cast the deciding vote. How would you feel?

This example is not some farfetched nightmare. It is based on an actual case from West Virginia in 2007, where that state's Supreme Court threw out a damages award against a coal company. The court's vote was split 3-2, with the deciding vote cast by a new justice whom the coal company had just spent $3 million to elect.

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