ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the book. The book begins the process of building knowledge about the empirical effect of independence-promoting measures by investigating the effects of state codes of conduct. States have used judicial elections for more than 150 years. The book demonstrates that some parts of judicial codes of conduct have real effects on judicial elections. Independent of broader political trends and candidate- and race-specific characteristics, the canons of ethics provide enough constraints on candidate behavior to have demonstrable effects on candidate messages and election outcomes. Charles Geyh's framework points the way forward for how to integrate empirical findings into normative debates about the effects of ethical regulations and other independence-promoting mechanisms. Geyh's framework could give rise to a host of testable hypotheses about how particular institutional choices in any one of these three dimensions affect candidate or judicial behavior in the others.
