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Marilyn Kelly

  • ️Tue Nov 02 2004

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Marilyn Kelly

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Wayne State University Board of Governors

Tenure

2015 - Present

Term ends

2030

Years in position

10

Prior offices

Michigan Supreme Court

Elections and appointments

Education

Contact

Marilyn Kelly (Democratic Party) is an at-large member of the Wayne State University Board of Governors. She assumed office on January 1, 2015. Her current term ends on December 31, 2030.

Kelly (Democratic Party) ran for re-election for an at-large seat of the Wayne State University Board of Governors. She won in the general election on November 8, 2022.

Kelly was a justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. She was elected to the court for an eight-year term on November 5, 1996, after having been nominated to run for a seat on the court by the state's Democratic Party. She retired on January 1, 2013, due to the mandatory retirement age in Michigan.[1][2]

Education

Kelly received her B. A. from Eastern Michigan University in 1960. In 1961, she obtained her master's degree in French Language and Literature at Middlebury College in Vermont, completing her graduate studies at La Sorbonne, the University of Paris. Justice Kelly received her J.D. with honors from Wayne State University Law School in 1971.[3]

Career

From 1962 to 1967 Justice Kelly taught French at Grosse Pointe Public Schools, Albion College and Eastern Michigan University. She was elected statewide in 1964 to the Michigan State Board of Education and later became its President. From 1969 to 1988, she held several clerkships and practiced law as an associate attorney at Dykema, Gossett, Spencer, Goodnow & Trigg in Detroit, as a partner at Dudley, Patterson, Maxwell, Smith & Kelly in Bloomfield Hills and as principal and owner of Marilyn Kelly & Associates in Bloomfield Hills. In 1988 Justice Kelly was elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals for a six-year term. She was re-elected in 1994 and served until she joined the Michigan Supreme Court. Kelly was a supreme court justice from 1998 to 2013.[3]

Awards and associations

Awards

  • 2009 Guardian of Justice Award, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
  • 2005 Outstanding alumni, Wayne State University
  • 2003 Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award, State of Israel Bonds Attorney Division
  • 2003 Michael Franck Award, State Bar of Michigan[3]

Associations

  • Fellow, Michigan State Bar Foundation, 2003
  • American Arbitration Association
  • Oakland County Bar Association
  • Chair, Family Law Committee, Oakland County Bar Association
  • Committee Co-Chair, President's Task Force on Improved Dispute Resolution, Oakland County Bar Association
  • Panel Attorney, State Attorney Discipline Board
  • Family Law Council, State Bar of Michigan
  • State Bar Representative Assembly
  • President, Women's Bar Association
  • President, Women Lawyers' Association of Michigan[4]

Elections

2022

See also: Michigan State Board of Regents election, 2022

General election

Democratic convention

Republican convention

Green convention

Libertarian convention

U.S. Taxpayers Party convention

Campaign finance

2004

Kelly won re-election with 56% of the vote.[5] Kelly raised $682,710 toward her re-election bid.[6]

1996

Kelly defeated two opponents to win her seat on the court. She received 53% of the total vote.[7] She raised $539,529 during the campaign.[6]

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Marilyn Kelly did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.

Notable positions

Voter ID

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that a state law requiring voters to show photo identification or swear to their identity is constitutional. The ruling was 5 to 2, Republicans to Democrats, accordingly. According to the Los Angeles Times, "critics say the ID requirement is essentially a poll tax that would hit hardest the poor, elderly, disabled and minorities and keep them away from the polls. Supporters say it’s needed to prevent election fraud. The Michigan law requires voters to show photo ID to get a ballot, but it still allows those who don’t have photo IDs to vote if they sign affidavits swearing to their identities." The Supreme Court determined that the ID requirement was not a poll tax because voters could choose to sign the affidavit instead. In the majority opinion, Justice Robert P. Young, Jr. said the requirement was a “reasonable, nondiscriminatory restriction designed to preserve the purity of elections and to prevent abuses of the electoral franchise.” In dissent, Justice Marilyn Kelly said that “history will judge us harshly for joining those states that have limited the precious constitutional right to vote.”[8]

Political ideology

See also: Political ideology of State Supreme Court Justices

In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.

Kelly received a campaign finance score of -0.88, indicating a liberal ideological leaning. This was more liberal than the average score of 0.05 that justices received in Michigan.

The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[9]

See also

External links

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