As longtime readers of this blog know, I despise judicial elections, which destroy legal norms and create extensive conflicts of interest.

But things could get even worse — the Supreme Court is considering a case from West Virginia about whether a state supreme court justice there should have recused himself from a case involving a coal mining company whose chief executive spent $3 million to defeat the justice in a previous election.

It’s an impossible situation. On the one hand, the recusal seems like common sense — the justice certainly could have personal reasons to rule against the company. But on the other hand, a ruling that judges have to recuse themselves in such cases could have the perverse effect of drawing more money into the system. Attorneys, companies, and individuals might choose to make large contributions as an insurance policy so that they would have a basis to demand recusals by ideologically hostile judges in future court cases.

The only solution, of course, is for states to end judicial elections altogether. But I have little hope of that happening. Taking away the public’s right to vote on candidates of any kind is virtually impossible. (Likewise, there’s no way that the Roberts court would take such a dramatic step, nor is it their place to do so.)