This week, some retired justices and judges have been on a multi-state bus tour, making the case against what they see as increased partisanship and eroded trust in the American judicial system.
Their brown and black coach bus, with a decal on each side reading “Justice in Motion,” kicked into gear Tuesday in the greater Pittsburgh region. It was loudly idling in downtown Columbus on Wednesday morning.
Organized by the group Democracy Rising Collaborative and the group Keep Our Republic, Justice in Motion is in reaction to concerns about America’s increasingly politicized courts, those leading it have said. Judge Ronald Adrine, who in 2018 retired from the Cleveland Municipal Court bench after 36 years, tagged along for the first leg of the ride.
“We all have a dog in this fight, and everybody needs to be concerned about preserving and protecting the rule of law,” Adrine said in an interview.
So far, they’ve disembarked the bus for a variety of events: a news conference and a demonstration, meetings with high schoolers at universities and community centers.
Adrine said they were asked in Pennsylvania whether this week could make any difference.
“And of course, we have no way of knowing, right?” Adrine said.
After delivering remarks outside federal court, retired Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, the former Republican head of the Ohio Supreme Court, led a march of sorts a few blocks south to her former office.
Her dog, Carlo, at times dragged her forward.
In 2022, O’Connor was the deciding vote in the drawn-out case over Congressional and legislative redistricting, which has drawn condemnation from state Republican officials ever since.
It didn’t do much to swing her.
“Thanks to our forefathers, we are only beholden to the rule of law, not the individual, elected officials,” O'Connor said in an interview aboard the bus. “And those elected officials come and go, but the rule of law is the same, day in and day out.”
But right now, she said she worries the rule of law is not an ultimate motivation. On the way to Ohio State University, she points to partisan labels for some judicial candidates in Ohio. That is thanks to a legislative change in 2022.
“That is the antithesis of what should be there,” she said.
The Justice in Motion bus was headed for Wooster, then Cleveland, ending in Michigan on Friday.
