Election Information 2022 | Episode 4
Welcome to the fourth and final addition to our 2022 election series. In week one, we focused on voting and election information. Don’t forget that Monday, October 11 is the last day to register to vote.
And the last two weeks, this series focused on some lower visibility races that are still very important to the practice of medicine – legislators running for the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate.
This week we look at the Ohio Supreme Court - statewide races that don’t always get a great deal of attention, and this year in particular, there are a variety of opinions amongst physicians about these races.
Ohio is one of 30 states with elections this November for Supreme Court judges.
Three of the seven seats on the Ohio Court are up for election, including the position of the Chief Justice. And due to recent law changes in Ohio, this will be the first time that Supreme Court candidates will be identified by political party affiliation. The current court has 4 Republican justices and 3 Democratic justices.
The current Chief Justice, Maureen O’Connor, is prohibited from seeking reelection due to age limits. Two incumbent Associate Justices are running for the Chief Justice position – Justice Sharon Kennedy and Justice Jennifer Brunner. Both of these justices are in the middle of their terms, so whoever wins the Chief Justice race will create a vacancy among the remaining six Associate Justices that will be filled by a gubernatorial appointment.
In addition to the Chief Justice position, two Associate Justice positions are also on the ballot:
Incumbent Justice Pat DeWine is opposed by State Appeals Court Judge Marilyn Zayas
Incumbent Justice Pat Fischer is opposed by State Appeals Court Judge Terri Jamison
There is important policy history and perspective to bring to the Supreme Court elections.
The state Supreme Court has long played a key role in interpreting Ohio’s tort law that greatly influences the availability and cost of physician liability insurance. Physicians who were practicing in Ohio in the early 2000s will remember a time when many liability insurance companies stopped offering physicians’ policies and those that did offer a policy had annual premium increases that exceeded 20% per year. Patient access was impacted as physicians struggled with liability coverage.
The Ohio Legislature passed tort reform law in 2003, and with some controversy, the Supreme Court upheld the new law as constitutional. This law resulted in a dramatic change in physicians’ ability to get liability coverage.
Over the past 15 to 20 years the liability insurance market has been stable, and younger physicians in Ohio do not have any of this lived experience. Additionally, physician employment patterns have substantially changed during this same period, with a declining percentage of physicians being self-employed or working in small physician-owned practices and as such are not as directly connected to procuring their own liability coverage.
These two factors combine with recent high-visibility court cases related to women’s reproductive health rights and Ohio legislative and Congressional redistricting to create an environment where many physicians look at the Supreme Court races through a different lens.
It is this context that is key to appreciating why the Ohio State Medical Association has issued endorsements for the Supreme Court, and why there are also now independent physician organizations that have formed to support different candidates.
Regardless of one’s individual views, there is little doubt that the Ohio Supreme Court is important to physicians, patients, and the practice of medicine. CMA members are encouraged to vote for the candidates of their choice, including those candidates in less visible races like the Ohio Supreme Court.
If you have any questions about this election and the Columbus Medical Association, don’t hesitate to contact Malcolm Porter, the CMA’s consultant for policy and politics, at malcolmjporter@aol.com.