All 19 of Alaska’s state judges up for election this cycle are leading in their bids to remain on the state bench, including the judge who faced a campaign to oust him over his controversial homeschool ruling.
Voters are so far approving Anchorage Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman by the slimmest margin, with 53% saying yes to his retention, meaning he’d serve another six years on the bench.
Zeman was the only judge on this year’s ballot to face an organized removal campaign.
The campaign followed his ruling that the state’s correspondence school system violated a provision of the state constitution that bars the use of state money for the benefit of a private or religious school, since some parents use the system to subsidize private school tuition. The ruling was set to take effect in July until the Alaska Supreme Court set it aside on technical grounds, saying school districts were a necessary party to the suit, and sent it back down to the lower court.
Though the ruling did not take effect, it led two conservative groups — Alaska Family Action and a local chapter of Moms for Liberty — to organize a campaign urging voters in Southcentral Alaska to oust Zeman.
It is extremely rare for voters to remove judges from the bench. In state history, just six judges have been ousted in retention elections. However, approval of state judges has fallen to record lows: in 2022, 19 of the 20 judges up for retention won with less than 60% of the vote.
This year, the independent commission that selects nominees for the bench, the Alaska Judicial Council, recommended that all judges, including Zeman, be retained based on performance evaluations that incorporate feedback from attorneys, jurors and others who interact with the court system.
View the full election results here. Additional ballots will be counted in the coming days and weeks.
This article was originally published by Alaska Public Media reporter Eric Stone.
Cover photo credit: The Nesbett Courthouse in downtown Anchorage on Aug. 31, 2022. (Valerie Kern/Alaska Public Media)