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Election As Appointment: The Tennessee Plan Reconsidered, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Tennessee's merit system for selecting judges - referred to as the Tennessee Plan - has been controversial ever since it was enacted in 1971 to replace contested elections. The greatest controversy has been whether the Plan is even constitutional. The Tennessee constitution states that all judges "shall be elected by the qualified voters" of the state. Yet, under the Tennessee Plan, the governor appoints all appellate judges, and those judges come before the voters only after a period of time on the bench and only in uncontested yes-no retention referenda. In 1977, the people of Tennessee were asked to amend …