Republicans want to impeach judges they don’t agree with

By Billy Corriher

Kentucky Republicans recently tried to impeach a judge over her decisions in six cases, including a ruling that called out prosecutors for seeking harsher sentences for Black defendants. But the state supreme court put a stop to the proceedings last week, ruling that lawmakers’ “tyrannical” move violated the judge’s due process rights and the constitutional separation of powers. The high court warned that lawmakers wanted to interpret the Kentucky Constitution to give themselves “complete unchecked power” to impeach judges over their decisions.

It’s the latest example of Republican legislators taking aim at judges whose rulings they don’t like — an assault that’s designed to intimidate and poses a clear threat to our constitutional system of separation of powers.


While the Republican lawmakers claimed that Judge Julie Muth Goodman abused her power, the court ruled 5-1 that the judge can’t be impeached over her rulings. The court said the power to “supervise and correct” Goodman’s decisions lies within the judiciary, not the legislative branch. Republicans had also recently considered impeaching a high court justice over a perceived conflict of interest, but they didn’t move forward. 

A similar saga played out in neighboring West Virginia in 2018. The Republican-led legislature impeached the entire state supreme court over a budget scandal. But judges there blocked the impeachment proceedings targeting the justices, citing due process and separation of powers. Republican state senators initially said they would defy the courts, but didn’t ultimately move forward.

The Kentucky power grab follows threats to impeach judges in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and several other states over the course of the Trump era. President Trump and Senate Republicans have lashed out and threatened to impeach judges who refuse to greenlight Trump’s agenda.

It’s the latest example of Republican legislators taking aim at judges whose rulings they don’t like.

Republicans in other states have been just as explicit about their motivations as lawmakers in Kentucky. In Utah, legislators recently threatened to impeach a judge for striking down their gerrymandered election districts and honoring a voter-approved mandate for fair districts. The lawmaker who sponsored the impeachment articles accused the judge of “gross abuse of power, violating the separation of powers and failing to uphold her oath of office.”

Pennsylvania Republicans responded to a 2018 ruling by the state Supreme Court to redraw election districts by threatening impeachment of the Democratic justices who joined the ruling. The legislator who introduced articles of impeachment complained that the justices didn’t give them a sufficient chance to redraw the districts.

In 2022, as the North Carolina high court decided whether the state constitution outlawed gerrymandering, GOP legislators threatened to impeach Democratic justices. At the time, Republicans didn’t have enough votes in the state Senate to remove the justices. But the former head of the state GOP pointed out that the justices would be suspended if the House impeached, and he argued that senators should “slow walk” the trials until the GOP had a chance to take control of the court in the 2022 election. 

The legislature didn’t move forward, but Republicans have repeatedly discussed impeaching Justice Anita Earls, a former civil rights lawyer who defeated GOP voter suppression in court. In 2023, Earls faced a bogus ethics investigation for calling out bias and discrimination within her courtroom. The complaint against Earls was dismissed after she filed a federal First Amendment lawsuit. 

In Missouri, Tennessee and other states, lawmakers have tried to remove judges whose rulings they didn’t like. Lawmakers introduced a bill to remove a Nashville judge after she ruled to expand access to mail-in voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it failed in the state House. Legislators in Montana, Utah and other states are going after judges and passing bills that radically change the judiciary. Montana progressives are responding to repeated efforts to make judicial elections partisan by putting an amendment on the ballot to require nonpartisan races. 

The GOP’s impeachment efforts aren’t about judicial misconduct: They’re about intimidating judges who disagree with them. Following Trump’s lead, the GOP will continue to threaten judges who stand in their way. Democrats cannot let them. They must continue to call out these bogus impeachment hearings while going after judges who have actually violated ethics rules — such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. It is time to fight fire with fire.

Billy Corriher is the state courts manager for People’s Parity Project and a longtime advocate for fair courts and progressive judges. As a Democracy Docket contributor, Billy writes about voting and election state court cases in North Carolina and across the country.