CALIFORNIA: WHAT ABOUT THE JUDGES?
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I've known Harry since we worked at KUSF, a college radio station in San Francisco. He still calls me every October and asks me who to vote for. And he isn't the only one. Now, Harry's smart enough to understand that Arnold Scharzenegger has been a terrible governor and that Phil Angelides will make a good one. And he understands about Debra Bowen and Jerry Brown, and all the top of the ticket races. He's even sure-footed on the importance of Proposition 89, the one that seeks to get institutionalized bribery out of the political system.
But what Harry is clueless about-- and what everyone I know is clueless about-- is what the hell you do about the judges. I'm almost as clueless on this as Harry. But I have friends throughout the state's political establishment (and anti-establishment). I asked them. They didn't know either.
There was a time you could just open the alternative weekly paper and trust that they had done the homework and figured it all out and you could tear out the page and bring it to the polls and know you'd be doing the right thing. Not any longer. Trusting a paper like the corporately-owned Los Angeles Weekly would be like trusting a list of suggestions from Rupert Murdoch or Karl Rove. The weeklies are as likely to sneak in a reactionary as they are to endorse a progressive. They are completely useless.
Finally my friend Lara came through, who had gotten the word from her friend Mike, who had gotten the word from Lila Garrett. Lila's completely trustworthy. Over and above winning awards from the Writers' Guild and a couple of Emmys, she was the Southern California Chair of the Kucinich Campaign. She has a great show on KPFK and she served as the President of Southern California Americans for Democratic Action for 6 years.
We might need a better way to do this is the future but if you need some advice about who to vote for, here's a good place to start:
Supreme Court Justice
Joyce L. Kennard
Carol A. Corrigan
Court of Appeal Justice
Frances Rothschild
Norman L. Epstein
Nora M. Manella
Richard M. Mosk
Arthur Gilbert
Dennis M. Perluss
Laurie D. Zelon
Candace D. Cooper
Madeleine Flier
Judicial, Superior Court
Janis Levart Barquist
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 3:39 PM
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4 Comments:
this is good, just a LOT late.
I do appreciate the effort though
From what I understand, these judges have already passed through the nomination and the judicial committee process and we, the people, are given the opportunity to make the final yes/no decision in case one or more of them are found to be completely unworthy. The nominees are not allowed to campaign or make promises other than "I will be fair" etc.
Now, that assumes that we (1) have faith in our elected officials and (2) we, the people, have enough information to make an educated decision.
(1) is debatable
(2) is non-existent
I googled all that were on my bay area ballot and found very little other than CV and mind-numbingly boring case law reports. Only in one case did I find any 3rd-party review and that was for Justice William R. McGuiness who recieved a grade of "F-" on gay issues, so he got a NO vote from me.
HTH
Thank you so much! This is extremely helpful (and timely, for me). I wouldn't have known how to vote if not for this.
There needs to be a more coordinated progressive campaign to educate voters on judicial races, and NOT a couple days before the election, but a full 2-3 weeks before the election when the most politically engaged voters are voting by absentee ballot.
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