Why Ohio Supreme Court Justice Melody Stewart Would Prefer Not To Run as a Democrat

In 2018, Melody Stewart made history when she became the first Black woman in Ohio to be elected to the state’s highest court. Now she’s asking Ohioans to reelect her to a second term. But this election will be a bit different.

“This will be my first time ever running with a party affiliation under my name,” Stewart, a Democrat, said.

In 2021, Ohio lawmakers passed legislation making Supreme Court and appellate court races partisan. It meant that candidates seeking to run for an appellate or supreme court judgeship must align themselves with a political party, a tricky bond for a jurist tasked with rendering impartial decisions. “The politicization of the court does not serve any legitimate purpose,” Stewart told Democracy Docket. 

Above all, Stewart said voters should consider her experience, which spans over a decade. Regardless of party, she said, Ohioans need seasoned jurists evaluating cases with statewide implications. Her opponent, fellow Justice Joe Deters, is a former prosecutor appointed to the court last year. The Republican candidate is eyeing Stewart’s seat in order to secure a full six-year term.

Why are you running for reelection, and what does it take to run a successful Supreme Court campaign?

I’m running to be reelected to the seat that over 1.8 million voters elected me to in 2018. I was honored and privileged to have that vote of confidence in my being able to do the job. Five and a half years later, I’m an even stronger jurist on the court, and with almost 18 years of appellate court experience, I am the most experienced jurist currently serving on the Ohio Supreme Court. 

I think my opponent is hoping that people will default to party affiliation. He’s the only jurist on the Ohio Supreme Court with no prior judicial experience. And I mean none, not as a judge, not as a trial court judge, an appellate court judge, not as a magistrate. Never even aspired for judicial office. The only reason I think he’s empowered to do so is because now there’s party affiliation on the ballot, and it is his hope that people don’t look at the backgrounds or the qualifications or the characteristics of us and just default to that party label.

So how do I run a successful campaign? It’s going to look a lot different than the campaign we ran in 2018 because that campaign was based on credentials. But factors other than quality will come into play. And so whether I’m successful or not remains to be seen. I guess we’ll know in about 75 days.

Did you agree with the Ohio Legislature’s decision in 2021 to make Ohio Supreme Court and appellate races partisan?

I don’t agree as a citizen. I don’t agree as a voter. I don’t agree as a jurist. This is a move that got no bipartisan support. It was a move that took place after a 7-0 (GOP) majority of the Supreme Court over a few years became a 4-3 Republican majority. So, now people want to know what party affiliation their judges and judicial candidates are? I don’t think so.

Another problem is it’s not on all judicial races. It’s just the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. There are seven Supreme Court justices who sit on the court. There’s 69 appellate court judges in the state.

Every other year there are hundreds of trial court judges on the ballot, and they don’t have party affiliation. Those are the judges that people see every day. They put people in jail. They terminate your parental rights. They decide your medical malpractice lawsuit. So they see people. We (the Supreme Court) don’t really see people. The lawyers come in and argue cases.

So, no, I don’t agree with it. But neither did a bipartisan part of our Legislature. The Ohio State Bar Association, the state’s largest Bar Association, disagreed with it. It is nothing but pure, raw political power. And I think anybody who is interested in good government would disagree with such a decision.

With there being more focus on a jurist’s political affiliation, do you worry that this will lead to further politicization of the high court?

I think things are getting very politically partisan. It has no place in the judiciary. And I think it will serve to further erode confidence in the judiciary.

How, then, should Ohioans evaluate a judicial candidate running on a party ticket? What does it mean that you’re running as a Democrat? 

It shouldn’t mean anything, because the fact that I’m running as a Democrat cannot tell you how I’m going to vote on an issue, because every judge in the state of Ohio, Democrat or Republican, takes the exact same oath. 

It’s the oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States and the Constitution and the laws in the state of Ohio. Now that doesn’t mean that we can’t differ on interpretations, but our oath is to uphold the law. So if the law says what it says, then it should be pretty plain. 

‘Liberal versus conservative’ shouldn’t have any place (on the court) because there are certain rules and standards that guide our review of cases. (For example) If a criminal law is ambiguous, then it inures to the benefit of the defendant. That’s legal analysis. That’s what we’re supposed to do. If a conservative approach is to try to uphold the conviction at all costs, well then that’s in violation of your oath of office. Because, again, if the law is ambiguous, it goes in favor of one party over the other. So those kinds of slants should not have a place in judicial decision-making.

On your campaign website, you talked about how you decided an important gerrymandering case — League of Women Voters of Ohio v. Ohio Redistricting Commission. Why did you highlight this specific issue and, moving forward, how will you approach gerrymandering on the court?

(The court held in 2022 that Ohio’s new congressional map was a partisan gerrymander that “unduly” favored Republicans in violation of the state constitution. Stewart concurred with the 4-3 majority opinion. A separate lawsuit is pending over the proposed ballot language for an Ohio amendment that would establish an independent redistricting commission.)

As a citizen am I opposed to gerrymandering? Absolutely, by any political party. I don’t think politicians should be able to choose their voters. I think voters should be able to choose their elected officials. So as a personal matter, of course, I’m opposed to gerrymandering.

Are all maps that people can legitimately disagree on necessarily gerrymandered? No, I don’t believe that. And so my approach is not to find that a map is gerrymandered. It is to look at the law that applies to how those maps are drawn and to see whether — with the application of that law, based on the evidence that was presented — those maps are in violation of the Constitution.

You mentioned how the campaign you ran in 2018 is not the campaign you’re running now, because of the difference in party affiliation. I’m curious how you illustrate the stakes of this race to voters?

I run based on the fact that on no planet, quite frankly, is my opponent better suited to be on the court, let alone stay on the court and have me removed from the court.

I’ve been a jurist, an appellate jurist, for almost 18 years. I’m the most experienced appellate jurist currently sitting on the court of all seven of us. I am the most educated jurist on the court, not only having a bachelor’s degree and a law degree, as we all do, but also having a PhD in social science, which helps me to ask the right questions and think more about the potential unintended consequences of our decision making.

I don’t just serve in my capacity as a Supreme Court justice. It is my responsibility as a statewide elected official to administer the oath of office to newly elected officials or re-elected officials, both Republican and Democrat, and to have my chambers open as much as possible for law students to intern with me. And I work directly with my externs. I don’t, you know, push them off to law clerks. I grade their papers, I go over their papers, I teach them as much as I can, because I want them to be good lawyers, and maybe down the road, good jurists, too. 

I try to be available to help people who are thinking about law school or thinking about being a lawyer or (getting) to where I am, since I’m the first person elected to the Supreme Court in the state’s history who looks like me. Those are responsibilities that I take seriously. And, my being on the court will not be as fulfilling if I’m the last person who looks like me on the court in our lifetime.