Mexico will hold an unprecedented vote on June 1. For the first time in its history, citizens will elect judges, from district courts to the Supreme Court. This change comes from a sweeping constitutional reform approved last September, pushed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the ruling Morena party.
In a matter of days, the new Congress and a majority of state legislatures ratified López Obrador’s proposal, amending the constitution. Under the old rules, Mexico’s president and Senate vetted top judges; the new law will instead have candidates campaign on ballots. The reform will create over 6,500 elected positions, cutting Supreme Court justices from 11 to nine and shortening their from 15 to 12 years.
Mexicans are already deeply divided over the change. In Mexico City and state capitals, striking court workers and protesters have voiced alarm, warning that the new system will “skew” justice. Critics say Morena’s supermajority rushed through the reform in late 2024 as López Obrador left office, with his hand-picked successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, ready to take over. López Obrador has defended it as “democratizing” the courts, but opposition legislators and civil-society experts charge that the real effect will be to subordinate judges to the ruling party.
Origins and Scope of the Reform
López Obrador first proposed constitutional changes in February 2024, arguing that Mexico’s courts were too elite and weak against crime. However, his previous reforms were blocked by the independent Supreme Court. The September 2024 overhaul – ed just weeks before López Obrador left office – explicitly shifts most judicial power to the electorate. Each branch of government (executive, legislative and judicial) will now nominate dozens of candidates for each open judicial seat, and voters will pick from those short lists.
Supreme Court candidates will campaign on ballots run by Mexico’s election authority and then be ratified or replaced by an electoral tribunal. Other significant changes: Judges’ pay would be capped at the president’s salary level, and a new disciplinary council will police judges, with powers critics say could be used to enforce partisan discipline. Altogether, every federal and state judge — including appellate and trial judges — will be on the ballot either in 2025 or 2027, making Mexico one of the very few countries in the world to have popular elections for judges.
Threats to independence and the rule of law
Experts warn this all-out election scheme poses grave risks to judicial independence and the rule of law. By design, Morena, the ruling party, would dominate the candidate pool. As one analysis from the Washington Office on Latin America notes, if one party controls the executive and legislature (as Morena does now), that party effectively selects the vetting committees and short-listed candidates — “a foreseeable result [is] a judiciary more aligned with the party in power,” and openly politicized. The disciplinary tribunal could then be stacked with partisan loyalists to monitor and pressure the judges. In short, legal scholars say this setup is a recipe for political capture of the courts. The Wilson Center sums up critics’ concern bluntly: the reform “will seriously undermine the independence of the judiciary, encourage corruption, and erode checks and balances” in Mexico’s system.
The reaction from abroad has been sharp. The United States, Mexico’s top trading partner, warned that the reform is “a major risk” to Mexico’s democracy because it will politicize the courts and make them vulnerable to criminal influence. Inside Mexico, watchdog groups and human-rights defenders fear the new rules will weaken protection of rights: if the government preaches that “good judges” are those who refuse bail or toughen punishments, voters may elect judges who strictly side with prosecutors, undermining due process.
Lessons from the U.S. Experience
The idea of electing judges is familiar in the United States, and it happens in many states (Texas among them). But it has long been controversial. In Texas, for example, judges run as Democrats or Republicans and often collect campaign checks from lawyers and businesses appearing in their courts. Large donations from special interests raise questions about impartiality in judicial races, according to a 2020 report by the Texas Commission on Judicial Selection. The bipartisan commission, mandated by the Legislature, argued that judicial elections allow the appearance of impropriety if not actual bias, because judges know they must appeal to donors and the electorate.
Studies document similar problems across the U.S. In the 2021–22 election cycle alone, candidates and outside groups spent over $100 million on state supreme court races nationwide — almost double the previous record. Outside interest groups now flood local judicial campaigns. Recent research from Michael Kang and Joanna Shepherd shows that judges up for reelection significantly alter their decisions to favor large donors compared with judges who are not facing voters.
Moreover, most voters know very little about judicial candidates. Ballots for judges tend to be low-information races: Citizens often rely on name recognition, party affiliation or even the order of names on the ballot, rather than substantive qualifications. In many states, the vast number of candidates and lack of media coverage mean voters frequently skip those races or vote straight-party.
The Wilson Center analysis of Mexico’s reform noted that with so many judges on the ballot — some 270 contestants for nine Supreme Court seats alone — voters will have to base choices on “limited cues (like gender, name recognition, or physical appearance) or simply stay home,” Experience in Texas shows that removing party cues (by ending straight-ticket voting) only partly solves this: Most voters still know nothing about most candidates.
Electing judges can undermine the independence of the rule of law that the reform claims to strengthen. There is no denying Mexico’s courts have flaws and need improvement. But turning judges into politicians carries its dangers. Democratic governance requires not only popular participation but also checks and balances. By contrast, the Mexican model concentrates influence in the ruling party and exposes judges to public whims.
The June 1 election may sound democratic, but it can undermine the very impartial justice system that democracy depends on.
Orlando J. Pérez is a professor of political science at the University of North Texas at Dallas.
Part of our series The Unraveling of Latin America. This essay illustrates the likely effects of electing judges by popular vote in Mexico.