Originally posted by Michael Milov-Cordoba with the Brennan Center for Justice.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion-related politics have loomed large over state judiciaries. In 2024, state supreme courts across the country continued to issue major decisions in cases affecting abortion rights. Money poured into state supreme court elections in states where fights about abortion access run through supreme courts, and 10 states had abortion-related amendments on the November ballot. State judiciaries will soon be tasked with deciding whether anti-abortion laws violate the newly enacted amendments.
Where state courts decided abortion cases, political fights over judicial selection often followed. In Oklahoma, the state senate passed a resolution, later defeated in the house, to refer a constitutional amendment to the ballot that would have abolished the state’s judicial nominating commission and empowered the governor to make all judicial appointments, subject to the advice and consent of the state senate. (A house version of the bill also gave itself a role in confirming judges). The bill came on the heels of the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s recognition of a narrow right to abortion and temporary enjoinment of three anti-abortion laws. Alaska and Kansas also saw legislative efforts to gut judicial nominating commissions in a year in which both state judiciaries issued significant decisions protecting abortion rights. And following the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to resurrect the state’s pre–Civil War abortion ban, the Arizona legislature referred a constitutional amendment to the November ballot, which voters ultimately rejected, that would have ended regular retention elections for Arizona justices, appellate judges, and many trial court judges and would have applied retroactively to two justices who upheld the abortion ban and were standing for retention.