(By Mark Gaffney, Michigan AFL-CIO)

The Michigan Supreme Court race is arguably the most important race in the state this year –and always. Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court are arguably the most important elected officials in the state. Justices of the state Supreme Court make the final call on Congressional and Legislative redistricting.  The last time Michigan underwent redistricting the GOP-controlled Supreme Court severely gerrymandered our state, radically redrawing lines so that Michigan lost three Democratic congressional districts and gained two GOP districts. (Michigan went from 9-7 Democratic to 9-6 Republican in the congressional districts).

The same is true for legislative elections: over 55% of MI voters voted for the Democrat in the State Senate races in 2006 yet the Republicans still control it 21-17.

How you vote is a personal decision. Based on the record the Michigan State AFL-CIO recommends Incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Alton Thomas Davisand Judge Denise Langford Morris for the Michigan Supreme Court. Please remember to cast your vote Tuesday, November 2^nd.

Meet the candidates: This fall working families across Michigan have the opportunity to elect not one but two great candidates to the Michigan Supreme Court. Incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Alton Thomas Davis and Judge Denise Langford Morris know the critical role the bench plays in the preservation of our rights. Together they will use their over 50 years of combined experience upholding Justice, Equality, and Fairness to weigh in on some of the most important issues of our time.

Justice Alton Thomas Davis grew up working on his grandfather’s farm in Northern Michigan. He was able to apply his tough work ethic learned on the farm to his studies in college at Western Michigan.  Justice Davis spent many years working in public schools before deciding to pursue his passion for the Law and earning his law degree at the Detroit College of Law.

Davis worked in private practice in Northern Michigan before becoming a prosecutor where he put murders and sex offenders behind bars.  He served on the 46^th Circuit Court for 21 years, including 17 as Chief Judge, before moving on the Michigan Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court.

Davis, who has been praised by both Democrats and Republicans for his fairness and honesty, has led the effort to streamline and reform Michigan’s judicial system.  He says that we have too many judges that have predetermined agendas, so he will be a fair and impartial judge committed to a professional and courteous court that is open to all the people of Michigan.

Judge Denise Langford Morris has served on the Oakland County Circuit Court for 18 years, making her the longest-serving woman on the bench and the first African-American to be elected county-wide in Oakland. Langford Morris put herself through Wayne State and law school at Detroit Mercy.  She was appointed to the court by Gov. Engler after working as an investigator for the state department of child protective services and then serving as a state and federal prosecutor where she has a record of putting murders and sex offenders behind bars.  

Langford Morris has a wealth of experience, having tried over 50,000 cases including high-profile criminal cases and complex civil litigation.  She says that the court has become unbalanced against the people of Michigan and she will use her 25 years of experience to return fairness, integrity, independence and compassion to the bench.

Meet the Opposition:

Justice Robert Young –up for re-election in 2010 —is infamous for being an activist jurist with an anti-consumer, pro-big business, pro-insurance agenda. Young is a former insurance company executive who shares radical, far-right Tea-Party political views with Kentucky’s Rand Paul and has told audiences he believes that Brown v. Board of Education –the U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed school segregation—was “wrongly decided.”

Young is one of only 10 of the more than 400 state Supreme Court Justices in the U.S. to choose to weigh in to defend infamous mine owner Don Blankenship and Massey Coal (owner of the notorious Upper Big Branch Mine) in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  Blankenship had lost a $50 million court case in West Virginia and responded by almost single-handedly buying the election of a state Supreme Court Justice in that state, who promptly overturned the verdict against Blankenship.

When the case went up to the U.S. Supreme Court, Young signed on to the friend of the court brief arguing that there was nothing wrong with what Blankenship had done.  Even the very conservative US Supreme Court disagreed, and ruled against Young and Blankenship’s Massey Coal.