Robin Hudson
- ️Tue May 06 2014
From Ballotpedia
Robin Hudson
Prior offices
North Carolina Supreme Court
Education
Robin Hudson (Democratic Party) was a judge of the North Carolina Supreme Court. She assumed office on January 1, 2007. She left office on January 1, 2023.
Hudson was elected to the court in 2006.[1][2] She did not file to run for re-election in 2022. To read more about judicial selection in North Carolina, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[3] Hudson received a confidence score of Strong Democrat.[4] Click here to read more about this study.
Education
Hudson received a B.A. in philosophy and psychology from Yale University in 1973, and a J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1976.[1] She was an attorney in private practice from 1976 to 2000. In 2001 Hudson became a judge for the North Carolina Court of Appeals where she served until 2006. Hudson joined the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2007 as an associate justice.[1] Hudson was the treasurer for the North Carolina Judicial Conference in 2002, and was a member of the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers from 1978 to 2001. She was also a member of the National Association of Women Judges, American Bar Association, and North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys.[1]
Elections
Hudson was first elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in a nonpartisan election in 2000. She was then elected and re-elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court in nonpartisan elections in 2006 and 2014, respectively.
2022
Hudson did not file to run for re-election.
2014
- See also: North Carolina Supreme Court elections, 2014
- See also: North Carolina judicial elections, 2014
Hudson ran for re-election to the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2014. She was successful in the primary on May 6, 2014, receiving 42.5 percent of the vote. She competed against Eric L. Levinson and Jeanette Kathleen Doran. She defeated Eric L. Levinson in the general election on November 4, 2014, receiving 52.5 percent of the vote.[5][6]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[7]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[8]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Robin
Hudson
North Carolina
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Strong Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Democrat as of 2020
- Donated over $2,000 to Democratic candidates
- Received donations from Democrat-affiliated individuals or organizations
Partisan Profile
Details:
Hudson was a registered Democrat as of 2020. She donated $18,625 to Democratic candidates. She received $10,861 from the North Carolina Democratic Party, $10,000 from the North Carolina Advocates for Justice, $6,000 from the North Carolina Association of Educators, $5,000 from the Carolina Justice PAC, and $2,000 from the North Carolina Democratic Women, all of which contribute more frequently to Democratic candidates than Republicans. She received endorsements from the North Carolina Democratic Party, the North Carolina AFL-CIO, North Carolina Advocates for Justice, and the North Carolina Association of Educators. In 2006 she was selected in a special election to fill a vacancy on the court. At the time of her election the state of North Carolina was a Democratic trifecta.
Other Scores:
In a 2012 study of campaign contributions, Hudson received a campaign finance score of -0.87, indicating a liberal ideological leaning.
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
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.
Hudson received a campaign finance score of -0.87, indicating a liberal ideological leaning. This was more liberal than the average score of -0.01 that justices received in North Carolina.
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]
State supreme court judicial selection in North Carolina
- See also: Judicial selection in North Carolina
The seven justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court are chosen through partisan elections. Justices are elected to eight-year terms and must face re-election if they wish to serve again.[10]
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a person must be licensed to practice law in North Carolina. There is a mandatory retirement age of 72 years.[11]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the supreme court is elected by voters to serve in that capacity for an eight-year term.[12]
Vacancies
In the event of a midterm vacancy, the governor appoints a successor to serve until the next general election which is held more than 60 days after the vacancy occurs. The governor must select an appointee from a list of three recommendations provided by the executive committee of the political party with which the vacating justice was affiliated.[13] An election is then held for a full eight-year term.[14][10]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Project Vote Smart, "Robin Hudson's Biography," accessed July 24, 2021
- ↑ News & Record, "Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson, a Page grad, announces re-election run," October 24, 2013
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ North Carolina State Board of Elections, "Candidate List Grouped by Contest," archived March 6, 2014
- ↑ North Carolina State Board of Elections, "5/06/2014 Unofficial Primary Election Results - Statewide," archived May 9, 2014
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | School of Government, "History of North Carolina Judicial Elections," August 2020
- ↑ North Carolina Judicial Branch, "Judicial Qualifications Summary," September 28, 2016
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection: North Carolina," accessed September 20, 2021
- ↑ Ballotpedia Election Administration Legislation Tracker, "North Carolina S382," accessed December 19, 2024
- ↑ North Carolina General Assembly, "North Carolina Constitution - Article IV," accessed September 20, 2021 (Section 19)
