As a California voter who usually has zero relevant information on judges on the ballot, I would welcome endorsements or opposition statements from YIMBY groups.
Ironically, the centrists I usually hear from about this (a group very heavily overlapping with YIMBYs) say that you should always vote to reelect all incumbent judges not credibly accused of outright malfeasance, whether you agree with them or not. The argument is that judges should not have to fear that voters will decline to reelect them because this undermines judicial independence.
Left-center lawyer here. This is true, unless your local bar association publishes the results of judicial rating surveys completed their members (many do).
If your local bar association publishes figures, check to make sure your incumbent gets decent scores for timeliness and deportment, as those qualities matter far more than political leanings in ~98% of cases. Personally, I vote against any judge who falls into the bottom 25% on any important quality in the survey.
Many elected judges simply don't do their jobs because laziness is hard for voters to detect in a judicial candidate unless it gets to truly extreme levels. Judicial ratings by lawyers who practice in front of them are the best tools available for informing laypeople about this stuff.
The media world has turned the old world upside down. City Hall and even the HOS are farthest from the people, and closest only to local elites. And unfortunately, Washington DC is now closest to the people, because we can find out more about what is going on there. So when you see a “conservative “ say “Local is closer to the people,” run the other way! And no I don’t like this state of affairs either.
> there are scores of politicians and interest groups who arrived in power during an era when land use reform was a topic for economics classroom seminars but not the real world, and for whom opposition to development and developers is still a righteous cause.
A lot of YIMBY dynamics from the U.S. transplant to other countries, this one might be a little more particular. Interesting nonetheless!
One question I still have: if lower court judges tend to halt development, is there a general theme as to why higher level courts end up reversing the decisions? Naively, I would have guessed that higher level appellate courts would suffer from the same biases.
I think this part of David's piece speaks directly to this problem! In general the local, disconnected politicians/judges are more likely to be NIMBYs/are least likely to have updated.
"While the systems differ, there is a broad consistency that trial court judges emerge from low-salience parts of local political cultures. These are the parts of our legal system that are least likely to be touched by ideological changes. And state laws — from state environmental laws to the complex procedures put into land-use law — give them plenty of discretion to find ways to frustrate newly emerging political will to reform zoning regulations."
Higher-court judges presumably don't view it as their job to be responsive to the desires of the particular group of entrenched politically-engaged people in one specific town who happen to be bringing any given case, since their jurisdiction is much broader and they're appointed from all over the state. It's the same reason why YIMBYs started winning when they shifted a lot of their focus from city councils to state legislatures. The people causing these problems are mostly NIMBYs, not BANANAs; they acknowledge in principle that housing has to be built somewhere, they just want it to be *somewhere else*, so that they don't have to pay the highly-localized costs.
Thanks for the excellent essay. Some quotations from it:
- “In many cities, there are scores of politicians and interest groups who arrived in power during an era when land-use reform was a topic for economics classroom seminars but not the real world, and for whom opposition to development and developers is still a righteous cause”
- “‘... I’ve lived in the city my whole life. You can’t just do this because the zoning allows it. ...’”
- “officials who represent the voters who show up in those types of elections — older, richer, and far more likely to be homeowners”
In the mid-20th century, voting cohorts starting aging out in their 50s and were essentially gone by 75. Now they are robust into their 70s and meaningful in their 80s. Much of the change the country needs is simply to rebalance electoral power towards younger generations. NIMBYism is of course a key example, as homeowners control politics to prevent new residents—in effect the electorate choosing the officials who will choose the electorate.
Why is it a priority for democrats, which I am one, to pass onerous laws that give very limited protection but raise costs in big urban areas? Time o make it easier not pass onerous laws that just raise costs.
In most places in the U.S., local government isn't that ideological and instead is dominated by narrow interest-group stuff. And a lot of forms of construction have geographically diffuse benefits and geographically concentrated costs, so if you allow the immediate neighbors to decide whether it gets to happen, then it doesn't. Or are you talking about something else?
As a California voter who usually has zero relevant information on judges on the ballot, I would welcome endorsements or opposition statements from YIMBY groups.
Ironically, the centrists I usually hear from about this (a group very heavily overlapping with YIMBYs) say that you should always vote to reelect all incumbent judges not credibly accused of outright malfeasance, whether you agree with them or not. The argument is that judges should not have to fear that voters will decline to reelect them because this undermines judicial independence.
Left-center lawyer here. This is true, unless your local bar association publishes the results of judicial rating surveys completed their members (many do).
If your local bar association publishes figures, check to make sure your incumbent gets decent scores for timeliness and deportment, as those qualities matter far more than political leanings in ~98% of cases. Personally, I vote against any judge who falls into the bottom 25% on any important quality in the survey.
Many elected judges simply don't do their jobs because laziness is hard for voters to detect in a judicial candidate unless it gets to truly extreme levels. Judicial ratings by lawyers who practice in front of them are the best tools available for informing laypeople about this stuff.
The media world has turned the old world upside down. City Hall and even the HOS are farthest from the people, and closest only to local elites. And unfortunately, Washington DC is now closest to the people, because we can find out more about what is going on there. So when you see a “conservative “ say “Local is closer to the people,” run the other way! And no I don’t like this state of affairs either.
There is some repeated text in the post, eg:
> there are scores of politicians and interest groups who arrived in power during an era when land use reform was a topic for economics classroom seminars but not the real world, and for whom opposition to development and developers is still a righteous cause.
Thanks for flagging! Fixed.
A lot of YIMBY dynamics from the U.S. transplant to other countries, this one might be a little more particular. Interesting nonetheless!
One question I still have: if lower court judges tend to halt development, is there a general theme as to why higher level courts end up reversing the decisions? Naively, I would have guessed that higher level appellate courts would suffer from the same biases.
I think this part of David's piece speaks directly to this problem! In general the local, disconnected politicians/judges are more likely to be NIMBYs/are least likely to have updated.
"While the systems differ, there is a broad consistency that trial court judges emerge from low-salience parts of local political cultures. These are the parts of our legal system that are least likely to be touched by ideological changes. And state laws — from state environmental laws to the complex procedures put into land-use law — give them plenty of discretion to find ways to frustrate newly emerging political will to reform zoning regulations."
Higher-court judges presumably don't view it as their job to be responsive to the desires of the particular group of entrenched politically-engaged people in one specific town who happen to be bringing any given case, since their jurisdiction is much broader and they're appointed from all over the state. It's the same reason why YIMBYs started winning when they shifted a lot of their focus from city councils to state legislatures. The people causing these problems are mostly NIMBYs, not BANANAs; they acknowledge in principle that housing has to be built somewhere, they just want it to be *somewhere else*, so that they don't have to pay the highly-localized costs.
Thanks for the excellent essay. Some quotations from it:
- “In many cities, there are scores of politicians and interest groups who arrived in power during an era when land-use reform was a topic for economics classroom seminars but not the real world, and for whom opposition to development and developers is still a righteous cause”
- “‘... I’ve lived in the city my whole life. You can’t just do this because the zoning allows it. ...’”
- “officials who represent the voters who show up in those types of elections — older, richer, and far more likely to be homeowners”
In the mid-20th century, voting cohorts starting aging out in their 50s and were essentially gone by 75. Now they are robust into their 70s and meaningful in their 80s. Much of the change the country needs is simply to rebalance electoral power towards younger generations. NIMBYism is of course a key example, as homeowners control politics to prevent new residents—in effect the electorate choosing the officials who will choose the electorate.
“You can’t just do this because the zoning allows it” rule of law anyone?
Why is it a priority for democrats, which I am one, to pass onerous laws that give very limited protection but raise costs in big urban areas? Time o make it easier not pass onerous laws that just raise costs.
In most places in the U.S., local government isn't that ideological and instead is dominated by narrow interest-group stuff. And a lot of forms of construction have geographically diffuse benefits and geographically concentrated costs, so if you allow the immediate neighbors to decide whether it gets to happen, then it doesn't. Or are you talking about something else?
No elections for judges, except retention, but definitely term limits!