South Carolina Supreme Court

A columnist for The State, a newspaper in South Carolina, writes about a unique wrinkle arising out of that state's system for selecting the chief justice of its supreme court: legislators might break with tradition of selecting the longest-serving justice as a matter of course.

The current chief justice and another current justice on the court both have gone through a vetting process with a merit selection commission. Usually, the most senior justice is elevated as a matter of tradition to become the chief justice. But Supreme Court Justice Costa Pleicones is challenging incumbent Chief Justice Jean Toal.

"The Legislature will break precedent if it elects Mr. Pleicones. But even if it re-elects Mrs. Toal, the status quo already has been interrupted, making it much easier for lawmakers to break with tradition and skip over Mr. Pleicones and, who knows, perhaps skip over Mr. Beatty, possibly even select a chief justice who isn’t on the court," Cindi Ross Scoppe wrote.

The issue with all of this? Politicizing a branch of government that is supposed to be apolitical, Scoppe argued.