There is a better way to select state supreme court justices than by conducting elections.

Sandra Day O 'Connor knows. She lives with a better way in her home state of Arizona. It 's called merit selection.

"I 'm so proud of how it 's worked there and the quality of the judges that we have, " O'Connor said in Milwaukee on Wednesday.

Arizona is one of 24 states that since 1940 have adopted merit selection to choose the justices for their highest courts. Merit selection contrasts with the elections still used by Wisconsin and 20 other states. (In five states justices are appointed directly by the governor or legislature.)

Merit selection 's goal is to obtain the best qualified justices and to do so in an impartial manner.

Merit selection employs a nonpartisan committee to recruit and evaluate candidates. The committee submits a list of finalists to an appointing authority, such as the governor, who makes the selection from the list.

After an initial term, each justice 's performance is evaluated by the committee or by voters in an uncontested up-or-down election.

The states that have switched to merit selection have done so to escape the problems Wisconsin has experienced with its last two Supreme Court elections. Both were plagued by sordid campaigns in which well-financed outside interests spent millions of dollars on misleading ad campaigns to back their favorite candidate.

Each election left Wisconsin to wonder: Is the state getting the best, impartial justice? Or are partisan interests getting the most partial justice their money can buy?

O 'Connor, who retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006, spoke in Milwaukee of the problems in electing justices and the benefits of merit selection.

She correctly highlighted the importance of judicial independence and accountability.

When elections become charged with politics and outside money, as Wisconsin 's have, they corrupt judicial independence.

Justices who are supposed to be accountable for impartially upholding the law become accountable to campaign backers instead. As a result, more questions arise about whether justices should recuse themselves from cases because of potential conflicts.

The public loses trust in impartial justice.

It 's time for Wisconsin to join Arizona as a state where merit prevails over politics on the Supreme Court.

Arizona's system earns high praise

Merit selection plans differ from state to state. No merit selection state is immune from criticism. But Arizona has been hailed in one law publication — the Fordham Urban Law Journal — for providing "a judicial selection process far more informative and generally superior to traditional elections."