There's a sorry history of these kinds of charges of bias being leveled at women and judges of color, and also gay and lesbian judges. The theory being that they're going to be incapable of a disinterested judgment on matters that involve their own identity groups. And it came up famously for Constance Baker Motley who was one of the first African American federal judges in a case involving sex discrimination.

I personally think that we should be extremely reluctant to use a recall mechanism for an unpopular decision simply because of the message it sends about judicial independence.

Lawyers like to leave no stone unturned, provided they can charge by the stone.

Individuals because of their identity can't render an impartial judgment is just deeply offensive and contrary to all the ideals of the judicial system that we value.

You can understand why the original framers of judicial ethics thought it would be undignified and would call into question the legitimacy of the judicial decision-making process to have mudslinging by judges, but the way that we hobble people of enormous integrity from defending themselves is, I think, deeply problematic in states where you have an elected judiciary, or a judge is subject to recall.

I do think the whole question of judicial accountability is a complicated one. On the one hand, you want to encourage judicial independence. And it's always, I think, problematic when an unpopular decision triggers a recall election. Because it sends a disempowering message to judges. On the other hand, it's the only way that voters have to rein in someone whose views are really so out of the mainstream of public opinion that they jeopardize the legitimacy of the judicial process.

The cliché is what are the qualifications for a federal Court of Appeals judge is somebody who knew a senator once. I mean the process of selection is deeply political and yet we expect the result to somehow stand above it.