State Supreme Court Races Take Center Stage Ahead of 2024 Elections

CHICAGO (AP) — The 2024 elections will be dominated by the presidential contest and the battle for control of Congress, but another series of races is shaping up to be just as consequential. Crucial battles over abortion, gerrymandering, voting rights and other issues will take center stage in next year’s elections for state supreme court seats — 80 of them in 33 states. The races have emerged as some of the most hotly contested and costliest contests on the ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the consitutional right to an abortion. The decision shifted the abortion debate to states, creating a “new era” in state supreme court elections, said Douglas Keith, senior counsel in the judiciary program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks spending in judicial races.

'We have seen attention on state supreme court elections like never before and money in these races like never before,' Keith said. Heated court races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2023 handed victories to Democrats and saw tens of millions of dollars in TV ads, offering a preview of 2024. They’re also prompting groups to consider investing in states they would not previously have considered. At least 38 lawsuits have been filed challenging abortion bans in 23 states, according to the Brennan Center. Many of those are expected to end up before state supreme courts.

The ACLU is watching cases challenging abortion restrictions in Wyoming, Kentucky, Ohio, Utah, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska, Georgia and Montana. 'After Roe v. Wade was overturned, we had to turn to state courts and state constitutions as the critical backstop to protecting access to abortion,' said Brigitte Amiri, deputy director at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. 'And the stakes are unbelievably high in each of these cases in each of these states.' The ACLU was among major spenders on behalf of Democrats in this year’s state supreme court contests in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Another big player in recent court races has been the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has said its focus is mainly on redistricting, or the drawing of political district boundaries.

The group called state supreme courts the 'last line of defense against far-left national groups,' but didn’t say how much it intends to spend on next year’s races or which states it’s focusing on. In Ohio, Democrats are expected to cast state supreme court races as an extension of the November election in which voters enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution. The state has more than 30 abortion restrictions in place that could be challenged now that the amendment has passed.

'The state supreme court is going to be the ultimate arbiter of the meaning of the new constitutional amendment that the people voted for and organized around,' said Jessie Hill, law professor at Case Western Reserve University and a consultant for Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights. 'That is a huge amount of power.' With three seats up for a vote and a current Republican majority of 4-3, Democrats have an opportunity to flip the majority of the court while Republicans will try to expand their control. Hill said the 'very high-stakes election' will serve as another test of the salience of the abortion issue in turning out voters. 'We saw an incredible number of voters come out to vote on that amendment and an incredible amount of investment in those campaigns,' Hill added. 'I think we’ll see a similar attention and investment in Ohio come next year.'