The Los Angeles Times offers Judge’s Loss Stuns Experts; Election system and the jurist’s Latvian name are cited; Winner is a lawyer and shopkeeper, which begins: “”The rare defeat of a highly regarded sitting judge ousted from the bench Tuesday by a bagel store owner who’d barely practiced law in the last decade sent a jolt through Los Angeles County legal circles, leading some to question whether the system to select judges needs overhauling.”” When I voted Tuesday, I only cast a ballot in one judicial race (because I did not know anything about the other candidates. I had voted for Judge Janavs, who indeed has an excellent reputation. Another snippet:

Janavs, whose accent still has a trace of her native Latvia, said she had been inundated with calls from lawyers and judges.
“All I hear is ‘outraged,’ ‘disgusted,’ ‘appalled,’ ” Janavs said. “I’m not a person that uses those kinds of adjectives.”
When asked what words she would use, Janavs said: “Let me put it this way, my reaction is: Money can buy anything. That’s my reaction. My name probably didn’t help. But had she not spent a fortune on these slates, I don’t think my name alone would have helped her.”
Olson, who was rated “not qualified” by the Los Angeles County Bar Assn., outspent Janavs by more than 2 to 1, giving about $100,000 of her own money compared with about $42,000 in contributions reported by May 20 by the judge.

See also this USA Today interview with Justice O’Connor, which touches on the subject of judicial elections. Justice O’Connor calls the system whereby judges are elected and take campaign contributions from lawyers appearing before them a “lousy system.”
Link to both articles from Howard Bashman.
UPDATE: I neglected to link to this front page (and quite lengthy) article in today’s LA Times: “In Las Vegas, They’re Playing With a Stacked Judicial Deck.” The subhead: “Some judges routinely rule in cases involving friends, former clients and business associates — and in favor of lawyers who fill their campaign coffers.”