The Effect of Campaign Finance on Judicial Legitimacy

Lacking the power of purse and sword, the judiciary does not possess the coercive force afforded to the legislative and executive branches, leaving it dependent upon institutional legitimacy for effective functioning. However, due to rising campaign finance in increasingly political state judicial elections, many have questioned the integrity, independence and legitimacy of elected judicial officials. These questions came to a head in Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar (2015), where the Supreme Court ruled that the personal solicitation of campaign finance by a judicial candidate was unconstitutional because “the public may lack confidence in a judge’s ability to administer justice without fear or favor if he [the campaign donor] comes by the [judges] office asking for favors” (Pg. 9). While this claim seems to have sound theoretical foundations, empirical evidence on how personally solicited campaign finance affects public trust is quite sparse. Through the presentation of experimental vignettes, this study presents the empirical evidence to determine the effects that campaign finance has upon perceived judicial legitimacy, ultimately finding that elections and campaign finance do not have a statistically significant effect on ratings of judicial legitimacy.Bachelor of Art