The bad news is that some readers of this column will undoubtedly be disappointed in the outcome of Tuesday's election. The good news is that we don't have to listen to the interminable political ads and incessant news analyses of the race by the usual suspects each night on television.
Here in Mississippi, the best lesson from the 2000 election is that campaign finance laws in Mississippi need to be strengthened to stop the flow of "soft money" into state campaigns as a whole and the state's judicial elections in particular.
From both the business community and a handful of the state's trial lawyers, "soft money" flowed like rancid wine into the judicial races. It produced a disgusting, issueless set of races that concentrated not a whit on the issues and made those races little more than arm wrestling contests between competing interest groups - those who sue and those who get sued in personal injury, product liability, and professional misconduct suits.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce put up more than $400,000 for those judicial races while some of the state's trial lawyers spent at least an equal amount, but likely much more when the final reports are filed from all sources.
Clearly, campaign finance as it relates to the judicial races is out of hand.
There appears to be three choices at this juncture - make judicial posts appointive, tighten campaign finance laws or hold our noses and put up with the current cesspool in which these races are conducted.
Despite the hand-wringing claims of some segments of the media in Mississippi, judicial appointments won't remove partisan, special-interest politics from the selection of our judges. It will increase those elements. One need look no farther than the state College Board and to recent judicial appointments to fill mid-term vacancies to observe that politics remains alive and well in the appointment process.
Clearly, the Mississippi Democratic Party has become trial lawyer central in terms of campaign donations over the last couple of years. Making judicial appellate posts appointive will simply shift the campaign giving from the judicial candidates themselves to the governor's race. The business community will seek similar financial inroads to the appointment process with their wallets.
The solution to the "soft money" and intense special-interest intervention from all sides is simply to limit the amount and types of campaign spending allowed in judicial races.
Individuals, corporations, political action committees, special-interest groups, "educational" groups and the lot should be limited to single $250 donations to a judicial candidate, period. Candidates should continue to run in non-partisan elections.
In this state, we've sent transportation commissioners to prison for taking money from roadbuilders. Ditto, members of the Public Service Commission.
Why, then, do we deem it perfectly all right for a trial lawyer or an insurance company executive to give - directly or indirectly - thousands of dollars to the campaigns of judges or judicial challengers in front of whom those same lawyers will argue appeals of cases in which those same lawyers and insurance companies are players?
Mississippi has limited the PSC members regarding campaign finance. Why not limit appellate judges?
Those who preach appointment as the only solution to the campaign finance problems facing judicial elections engage in the worst kind of naiveté and need look only to the 1999 campaign finance reports to see the folly of that argument.
It's unlikely, however, that Mississippi will see our Legislature step up to the plate and address these issues. Why? Because there remain a large number of lawyer legislators who will protect their own interests, and there are other non-lawyer legislators who like the flow of direct and indirect campaign cash from the special interests into their own races.
It's also unlikely that Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, Secretary of State Eric Clark, or Attorney General Mike Moore will exercise any leadership on substantive campaign finance reform - since each of them has been the recipient of thousands of dollars in trial lawyer donations.
What's likely to happen is that Clark will continue to pay lip service to campaign finance reform, but that's about it. It's doubtful Musgrove, Moore and most lawmakers will even go that far into the political swamp.
Make no mistake, the Mississippi Supreme Court lost honor, lost dignity and lost public confidence during the 2000 campaign. It's ludicrous when the most powerful judicial body in the state shrugs its collective shoulders and claims not to know that over $400,000 is being spent promoting some of their number for re-election - and more importantly, that they can't stop it.
It's equally ludicrous for Mississippi trial lawyers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get themselves a court that will lean their way to cry "foul" when the state's business community has the audacity to try to outbid them in that effort.
That's what happened in Mississippi over the last six weeks.
