Special interest groups endorse, donate to Mississippi judicial candidates

Special interest groups have donated at least $117,000 to candidates running in contested elections for the Mississippi Supreme Court and the Mississippi Court of Appeals so far this year, and that figure is almost certain to increase before the November election.

Judicial elections in Mississippi are typically low-interest races where law firms, individual lawyers and trade associations make up the lion's share of political contributions. Endorsements from special interest groups often give candidates an edge in the race and their donations often give candidates a needed boost in campaigning.

The candidate who has racked up the most money from trade associations and other interest groups, according to campaign finance documents Mississippi Today reviewed, is Republican state Sen. Jennifer Branning of Philadelphia who is challenging incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens for his central district Supreme Court seat.

Branning has received at least $84,500 from interest groups, including $5,000 from the Mississippi Realtors PAC, $5,000 from the Mississippi Bankers Association and $5,000 from the Mississippi Road Builders PAC.

The candidate who has received the second-highest number of donations from special interest groups is incumbent Supreme Court Justice Dawn Beam of the southern district who is facing a challenge from Coast-based lawyer David Sullivan.

Beam has received at least $27,500 from special interest groups including $5,000 from the Mississippi Physicians PAC and $5,000 from the Mississippi Medical PAC.

With the election still four months away, these types of donations are widely expected to increase.

Brandon Jones, the director of campaigns for the Southern Poverty Law Center's Action Fund, an organization that promotes racial justice, said on Mississippi Today's July 15 edition of "The Other Side" political podcast, that the organization is endorsing Kitchens' bid for reelection, though he did not say whether that endorsement would come with a donation.

"Kitchens was elected in 2009 and has been, what I believe, one of the fairest, honest, down-the-middle and just kind of within the mainstream of what we would hope out of a jurist," Jones said.

It's fairly common in the Magnolia State for political organizations and interests groups to get involved in judicial races, since Mississippi opts to elect its state judges. But candidates for the state's most powerful judicial roles are limited in how they can campaign and fundraise.

The Code of Judicial Conduct adopted by the Mississippi Supreme Court prohibits judicial candidates from commenting on how they would rule on a potential case that could come before them.

And the code technically bans candidates from directly raising money, but they commonly get around this prohibition by forming a campaign committee to raise and spend money.

Since candidates for the most powerful judicial offices in the state can't comment on how they'll rule on cases, why do special interest groups donate to these candidates at all?

The Mississippi Physicians PAC, an arm of the medical malpractice insurance organization Medical Assurance of Mississippi, has donated $15,000 to three judicial candidates this year. The organization did not return a request for comment on why it had invested so much money in judicial races this year.

The Mississippi Medical PAC, operated by the powerful Mississippi State Medical Association, has collectively donated $10,000 to judicial candidates so far this cycle.

Dr. Jim Rish, past president of the organization and current chairman of the PAC, told Mississippi Today that the organization looks to the judicial candidates' prior rulings and personal judicial philosophy to determine donations.

Rish said the organization's primary concern is protecting the hard-fought battles it helped achieve on "tort reform" in 2004 or changes to state law that reduced the amount of damages plaintiffs can receive from malpractice litigation.

Mississippi by the early 2000s had become known as a lawsuit haven, where sympathetic juries and judges handed out huge awards to plaintiffs who filed malpractice suits against physicians and hospitals.

Medical leaders at the time argued they were on the verge of shuttering clinics because the cost of malpractice insurance had skyrocketed.

As a result, medical, insurance, business and political forces joined to push for lawsuit reform. The coalition proved successful when Gov. Haley Barbour and the state Legislature in 2004 passed legislation to cap noneconomic and punitive damages for such suits.

"We don't intend to become complicit in allowing the environment to revert back to that," Rish said. "We're fully engaged, and that's why we take a keen interest in these races."

The Mississippi Association of Realtors and the Mississippi Poultry Association have also each donated $10,000 so far in the ongoing judicial campaigns. None of the organizations returned a request for comment.

Judicial offices are nonpartisan, so candidates do not participate in a party primary. All candidates will appear on the Nov. 5, 2024, general election ballot. If a candidate does not receive a majority of the votes cast, the two candidates who received the most votes will advance to a runoff election on Nov. 26.

Judges on Mississippi's two highest courts do not run at large. Instead, voters from their respective districts elect them.

The nine members of the Supreme Court are elected from three districts: northern, central and southern. The 10 members of the Court of Appeals are each elected from five districts across the state.

The judges are elected in staggered terms, so all 19 seats of the two courts are not up for election each cycle.

-- Article credit to Taylor Vance of Mississippi Today