Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood won reelection in a landslide. Radley Balko tweets: "Mass corruption of state's justice system never an issue. Race was about $400 dinner at a steakhouse." And Balko is surely talking only about the criminal justice system there, not Hood's cozy relationship with trial lawyers where he delegates litigation to them that helps out the trial bar far more than taxpayers, or his carrying water for the now-convicted Dickie Scruggs's illegitimate litigation against insurance companies over Hurricane Katrina. [LNL]

The Hood reelection shows the problem of many states' constitutional structure. Mississippi voters have elected a governor, legislature, and high-court judiciary willing to restore the rule of law to the state and attempt to end its reputation as a judicial hellhole, but because trial lawyers control the office of a down-ballot executive branch race, the voters' will and true justice reform is hindered. Reform is needed.