Court Reform

Court of Appeals Judge Miles Hanisee won election Tuesday night thanks in part to a Republican wave, but that's not how he wants voters to define him.

Hanisee, a Republican who's been appointed to the court by Gov. Susana Martinez twice and lost election to the same position two years ago, is the first publicly financed upper judicial candidate to win election in New Mexico history. He's also the first Republican statewide judicial candidate to win election in 12 years.

"I feel immensely grateful. I feel humbled. I feel thankful," he says.

But Hanisee also wants to see the way judges are elected changed in New Mexico. Specifically, he doesn't think they should run as Republicans or Democrats but should instead run on their judicial qualifications and independence in the courtroom. It's a message that he stuck to throughout his campaign and one that he attributes partly to his victory on Tuesday.

"I'm not a Republican judge," he says, "and Republicans alone could have never elected me Tuesday night. When we have judges running as party members instead of running as unbiased candidates for a position that prohibits bias, it's bad for the system."

According to Judgepedia, just seven states elect their state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judges through partisan elections. Fifteen states elect judges through nonpartisan elections and 19 states only appoint judges through the governor, state legislature or local commission.

In New Mexico, a bipartisan judicial commission selects a handful of candidates through a rigorous process. The governor then appoints one of those candidates. Once the next election cycle comes around, judicial appointees must win a partisan election to hold onto their seats. If judges make it this far, voters are asked to simply retain or not retain them in all future elections.

Hanisee says he prefers keeping the bipartisan judicial commission. He also wants to keep the first election competitive between two candidates, but drop the party labels from it.

"There's absolutely nothing about a nonpartisan election that doesn't allow the same voter interaction," he says.

He adds that judicial candidates running for office in partisan elections are often put in awkward situations.

"For me, as a Republican, people want to make absolute sure I'm right to life," he says. "Of course, I never answered that question. It would be improper under judicial code of conduct."

Hanisee wants to keep retainment elections after the first election. He'll be up for retainment in 2018.

In New Mexico, registered Democratic Party voters beat out registered Republican Party voters by 16 points. That means it's hard for Republican candidates to win, even in an election years favorable to Republicans like this one. Hanisee beat his Democratic challenger Kerry Kiernan by less than 3 percentage points.

Hanisee also praises public financing, which he says limits perceived conflicts of interest. Judicial candidates who run privately financed candidacies get the bulk of their money from lawyers, who one day may face them in the courtroom. Though taxpayers pay for publicly financed campaigns, Hanisee says what they get in return is "one less chance of a partisan outcome" from the bench.

A merging of publicly financed, nonpartisan judicial races could be a model for the rest of the country, he argues.

Now ready to serve out the rest of his term, Hanisee says he'll continue pushing for judicial reform in New Mexico.

"I know I'm going to get a chance to keep talking about it," he says.

Santa Fe Reporter