As much as a quarter-million dollars was spent in the June 8 primary campaign for three judge seats based in Cass County.
Most of the 15 candidates who ran for the East Central District bench offered estimates of their expenditures Thursday - one month after the election.
For the first time in North Dakota history, judicial candidates this year are required to disclose individual campaign contributions of more than $200.
Thursday was the filing deadline to report those collections for the recent primary.
Three candidates - Connie Cleveland, Peter Crary and Monty Mertz - did not report their collections, but none of them made the June 8 primary cut for the Nov. 2 election.
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Several in the field said they were surprised the spending climbed so high and some said they were saddened by it.
"It's unfortunate that judgeship candidates have to invest that much money into a race," said Timothy Hill, a losing candidate who estimated he spent a couple thousand dollars in the campaign but reported no individual contributions of more than $200. "Like any election, the price is pretty high to be a candidate."
Others saw the expenses as necessary to separate themselves from the busy field. With two open seats and another held by a short-term incumbent, candidates had a rare opportunity to run for an office that the governor often fills by appointment. The primary whittled each race to two candidates.
For voters, that meant crowded fields of attorneys sending out a sometimes-baffling barrage of ads. Special campaign restrictions for judges also kept the candidates from touting much more than their experience.
"I think we saw the public was a little bit confused," said Leo Wilking, who self-reportedly spent $43,000 in the campaign, the most of any judge candidate who reported their expenses. "I think the amount of spending and use of media was appropriate to sort through that."
Most of the contributions posted on the Secretary of State's Web site came from relatives or friends in the legal field.
Judging by the gifts, North Dakotans need not worry about their new judges serving from the back pocket of huge donors. In some states, that's not the case.
Three of the local candidates mentioned Texas as notorious for campaigns in which companies or groups of attorneys contribute huge amounts of money. In some races, candidates spend $500,000, they said.
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"People just unabashedly buy judges," said Mertz.
In the races for the East Central District, which covers Cass, Steele and Traill counties, candidates were somewhat split on how well their primary dollars translated into votes.
"I know there are people who spent far more than I did who didn't fare any better," said Cleveland, who ran against six others in the largest of the three races.
Al Sheppard disagreed.
"Clearly, the more votes you got, the more you had to spend," he said.
Craig Ramsdell, a political science professor at North Dakota State University, saw every dollar spent as a public service. Each advertisement, even if it just promoted a name, informed voters a little more, he said.
Mertz called the system foolish. With the campaign restrictions judges face, the races become simply a matter of name recognition, and that's no way to select judges, he said. A more prudent process might be to create a nonpartisan panel to appoint them, Mertz said. Some advocates are promoting such an idea in Minnesota, he said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Dave Forster at (701) 241-5538
