By: Randy Evans

On March 3, qualifying for public office in Georgia will begin for candidates seeking election in 2014. While virtually all of the attention will be on the litany of candidates to replace Georgia’s senior U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and on the candidates for governor, there will be other elections that are equally important.

Eight appellate judges — five on the Georgia Court of Appeals and three on the Georgia Supreme Court — will also be on the ballot in 2014. Unlike partisan offices, voters will decide judicial elections on May 20 (unless there is a surprising surge of unannounced candidates so that a primary election runoff is required). As nonpartisan elections, judicial candidates’ names appear on both the Republican and Democratic primary ballots.

Notwithstanding the constant fear mongering about judicial elections, they are, for the most part, uneventful. Occasionally, judicial elections have been contested in the past, and even sometimes notable (especially as Georgia turned from blue to red). But, for the most part, judges run for re-election after appointment by the governor following the retirement, death or resignation of a sitting judge and get re-elected.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Sometimes, judges like Judge Cynthia Wright in Fulton County or Judge James Bodiford in Cobb County decide not to seek re-election. When that happens, a host of attorneys sign up to run and voters actually elect a judge. The key part of that equation is “when that happens”— which is not very often.

Yet, that’s exactly how some of the appellate court judges up for re-election in 2014 got on the bench. For example, Court of Appeals Judges Gary Andrews (November 1990) and Sarah Doyle (December 2008) were elected to the Georgia Court of Appeals, not appointed first. And, Supreme Court Presiding Justice Harris Hines was elected to the Superior Court of Cobb County first, not appointed.

With all of that said, six of the eight appellate judges were appointed to their current positions by governors ranging from Gov. Joe Frank Harris (Justice Robert Benham) to Gov. Zell Miller (Presiding Justice Harris Hines) to Gov. Nathan Deal (Justice Keith Blackwell). Indeed, although one of Gov. Deal’s appointments (Court of Appeals Judge Michael Bows, nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia) faced re-election in 2012, the 2014 appellate judicial elections will be in some significant part a referendum on Gov. Deal’s impact on the appellate courts in Georgia.

Indeed, four of the eight appellate judges on the 2014 primary election ballot are Gov. Deal’s appointees: Justice Keith Blackwell and Court of Appeals Judges William M. Ray II, Elizabeth L. Branch and Carla Wong McMillian.

All of the appellate judges as a collective encompass a very diverse array of Georgia attorneys from all corners of the state, representing differing backgrounds, ethnicity, race and gender. For example, Judge Carla Wong McMillian is the first Asian-Pacific American state appellate judge ever to be appointed in Georgia. Justice Robert Benham is the only African-American on Georgia’s highest court. And, to round out the group, Presiding Justice Harris Hines is a member of the Old War Horse Lawyers Club.

While voters could not technically shift the balance of power on either the Georgia Supreme Court or the Georgia Court of Appeals, they could certainly send a pretty strong signal if there was a sense that Georgia’s judges had gotten completely off track.

That is not going to happen.

First, to upset the judicial apple cart, attorneys would have to qualify to run against one of these incumbent judges during qualifying which extends from Monday, March 3, beginning at 9 a.m., through Friday, March 7, at noon. To date, there has not been so much as a murmur from potential candidates about running.

Second, even if there were candidates, the chances of defeating any of the incumbent appellate judges are slim to none. The fact is that in Georgia, few things are more difficult to pull off than defeating an incumbent appellate judge seeking re-election.

This is not to say that the appellate courts have not gotten a little out of kilter occasionally with Georgia voters. But, either voters (through constitutional amendments) or legislators (through legislation) have been able to effectively deal with most of the issues that have come along.

That does not mean there will not be any fireworks in 2014. In fact, there will be a few contested elections, just none at the appellate level. It is often said that more elections are decided on qualifying day than Election Day. That will absolutely be true for appellate judicial elections in 2014.