A political race between Jimmy Kuhn and Greg Guidry has turned nasty, but this is a race for the Supreme Court of Louisiana, in theory, a race that's supposed to be above this.

“You know, we're running for Supreme Court of our state,” said Greg Guidry. “It's a momentous election, it's an important election, and it should be treated with dignity and respect by the candidates.”

Judge Guidry didn't like a commercial, and Judge Jimmy Kuhn didn't like a series of mailouts.

“People, when they read this, it causes concern, then it destroys confidence in the court,” said Kuhn.  “The effect of this will be in the long run, if it continues, it will destroy the court as a separate, equal branch of government.  It puts government in jeopardy.”

And what started out as a race for Louisiana's highest judicial office looks like standard Louisiana politics.

Kuhn said he found the nasty tone of the race “extremely” disappointing.  Guidry agreed, “I’m surprised and disappointed.”

Louisiana is one of only six states to list the party affiliations of candidates for judge and one of only 16 states with no merit selection of judges, but there is one group trying to change those things.

Chip Wagar is with a group called the Louisiana Organization for Judicial Excellence.

“I think the whole process is degrading to the judges that are involved,” Wagar said.

“What we would like to see is merit selection of judges, where we don’t have to go through this whole process.  Frankly, a lot of people don't know a lot about judges and don’t know a lot about what they're qualifications are.  And what we advocate are citizen groups that recruit and vet judges based upon their qualifications.”

A list qualified candidates would then be presented to the governor and it would take a constitutional amendment to do that, but Wagar says the reasons are obvious.

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has, for example, for years, year in and year out, ranked Louisiana 49th or 50th in judicial competence, and judicial impartiality.  I mean, that says it all, I think,” said Wagar.

Chip Wagar and both candidates agree this hurts the profession by eroding people's confidence in the courts.