INSTITUTE INDEX: The Big Money crisis facing state supreme courts

Number of cases the U.S. Supreme Court decides each year: about 100

Number of cases state courts decide each year: about 100 million

Year in which state supreme court elections began changing from low-key races where little money was spent to highly politicized contests costing millions of dollars: 2000

Total amount contributed to state supreme court candidates throughout the 1990s: $83.3 million

Amount contributed between 2000 and 2009: $206.9 million

Unprecedented sum spent by special-interest groups on TV ads for state supreme court seats in 2016: $20 million

Percent increase in TV ad spending that represents over the 2012 election cycle: 50

Percent of that total spending done by independent outside groups as opposed to the candidates themselves: 55

Previous number of election cycles where outside spending exceeded candidate spending in state supreme court races: 0

In states where at least 10,000 ads for judicial races aired, percent increase in the likelihood of supreme court justices voting against a criminal defendant's appeal for every doubling of the ads' airings: 8

Since 2004, number of states where there's been a supreme court race where spending exceeded $1 million: 19

Total spending in the 2016 election for two seats on the Arkansas Supreme Court: $1.2 million

For two seats on the Louisiana Supreme Court: $2.2 million

In the most recent election cycle, portion of interest group spending on state judicial races that came from groups which don't fully disclose their donors: nearly all

Of all the outside TV spending on state judicial races in the latest election cycle, percent coming from groups that fully disclose their donors: 4

For every $10,000 in contributions from a partisan source, percent increase in a judge's likelihood to vote in a partisan way, on average: 3

Percent more likely that Republican judges, who favor their own party in election cases by a statistically significantly greater margin than Democratic judges, will cast partisan votes in such cases: 36 to 38

(Click on figure to go to source.)