Democrat Marilyn Zayas said part of the reason she is running for a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court is “people are losing faith” in the judicial system “because of politics.”

Zayas, who sits on the 1st District Court of Appeals in Hamilton County, said there are issues with the “politicalization of our courts, the integrity of our courts and the independence of our courts.”

Zayas is challenging incumbent Justice Dan Hawkins, a Republican who won a 2024 election for an unexpired term, receiving 55% of the vote.

Hawkins, who was a Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge before winning the Supreme Court seat, is running for reelection Nov. 3 for a full six-year term.

Zayas said the Ohio Supreme Court has permitted judges to become even more political with an April decision allowing them to make political endorsements, becoming the only state that explicitly permits it. Hawkins joined the majority in that 5-1 decision.

The judges decided to permit political endorsements by those in the judiciary branch in a disciplinary case in which the matter of a judge’s constitutional rights being violated wasn’t even argued.

Zayas said, “People truly want independence. They are tired of politics, particularly in the courts. They want to believe they have a fair chance. That’s why I’m running for the Supreme Court. That’s why the independence, the integrity and the accountability are really what’s on the ballot for our Ohio Supreme Court this fall.”

Party politics has played a significant factor in Ohio Supreme Court races, particularly since the Republican-controlled state Legislature passed a law, effective with the 2022 election, that requires party affiliation on the ballot for those running for seats on the court of appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court.

Before that, candidates ran in party primaries and then didn’t have political affiliation in the general election. In the 2018 election, two Democrats won seats on the high court with another Democrat winning in 2020.

Since then, Republicans have won every judicial contest for the Ohio Supreme Court.

Zayas ran in 2022 as the Democratic nominee against incumbent Justice Pat DeWine, a Republican. DeWine got 56.31% of the vote to 43.69% for Zayas.

Also, Zayas criticized the Ohio Supreme Court for reconsidering and reversing five previous decisions it made in the past decade, including one Tuesday. In a 4-3 decision Tuesday, the court overturned a 1987 decision and decided that a prosecutor may seek court permission to appeal a trial judge’s post-verdict judgment of acquittal of a criminal defendant.

Zayas said, “One of the concerns that I have and many of the attorneys I’ve met with is in the time that I’ve been on the bench, which is nearly 10 years, there has been more than one time that our Ohio Supreme Court has reversed itself, changing the outcome of a case that they decided. The question is why, and attorneys are asking why, and they’re not comfortable with that. They’re not comfortable with their perception of what the why is.”

Zayas added, “When we talk about the rule of law and when we talk about predictability and we talk about consistency, the highest court of our state is that beacon of light; they should be that platinum standard in living out those principles. So how is it that our Ohio Supreme Court is reversing themselves and changing their own determination? How is it that they recently decided that judges can now endorse politicians when that issue wasn’t even in front of them? No one asked for that issue to be decided by the Supreme Court. Now judges can endorse politicians, so we’re moving the court and our judges to be more politicized with that decision.”

While Zayas opposes party affiliation on the ballot for Ohio Supreme Court and courts of appeals races, she said she is “hopeful in the power of people. I’ve run these competitive races where supposedly someone like me was not supposed to be elected. But only in Ohio I believe that someone like me can be elected because Ohio truly values hard work, they value integrity, and that’s what’s going to play out in the fall. It’s not red or blue. I keep saying courts aren’t red or blue, they’re about you. They’re about us.”