Court of Appeals Judge Pamela Goodwine has won a seat on the Kentucky Supreme Court where she will become the first Black female justice in the state’s history.
Goodwine defeated Frankfort attorney Erin Izzo in the race for the high court’s Fifth District, made up of eight central Kentucky counties. She will replace retiring Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter in early January.
The Associated Press called the race for Goodwine Tuesday evening, when she had 78% of the vote over Izzo and a majority of the vote in each of the district’s eight counties.
Having previously served as a circuit and district court judge, Goodwine will now become just the fifth person in Kentucky’s history to serve as a judge at each level of the state’s judicial system. She often touted her 19 years of experience as a trial judge in her campaign.
Goodwine had an enormous spending advantage over Izzo in the race. Not only did Goodwine’s campaign raise many times that of Izzo, but two political action committees spent nearly $1 million on advertisements in support of her.
Goodwine also had the endorsement of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, whose top political consultant chaired one of the PACs that reported spending at least $489,000 on mailers for her.
This marks the second consecutive election cycle in Kentucky where an independent judicial watchdog group lamented the presence of partisan endorsements in a Supreme Court race, as the state’s judicial elections are supposed to be nonpartisan.
The Kentucky Judicial Campaign Conduct Committee warned Goodwine against touting the endorsement of Beshear in a June letter, noting a governor’s administration often has cases before the Supreme Court. The committee later did the same with Izzo, after she publicly thanked six county Republican parties for their endorsement.
The committee said such partisan endorsements could undermine public confidence in the impartiality and independence of the state’s highest court.
Regarding her endorsement from Beshear, Goodwine told the committee in June that she would adhere to the highest ethical standards and “if faced with a situation where my impartiality was reasonably called into question, I would carefully consider the circumstances and if necessary recuse myself to ensure the integrity of the judicial process.”
Liberty & Justice for Kentucky, one of the PACs that raised roughly a half million dollars in support of Goodwine, was mostly funded by teacher unions. The funders of Kentuckians for Good Judges, the PAC chaired by Beshear’s top consultant, will not be known until the next campaign finance reporting deadline in December.
Goodwine will be sworn into office on Jan. 7.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
