10/16/2002 5:04:00 PM PERRY / A judge’s right to be partisan
By Brian Perry
Reasonably Right
I have a friend who wants to be involved in politics, wants to go vote, wants to make a difference, but has a life of activity other than politics and doesn’t make time to keep up with all the details. That’s fine. People like me (on the right and left) do that so everyone doesn’t have to spend the energy.
Lately my friend and I have talked about judges. Every time he asks me if the candidate is a Democrat or a Republican. Every time I remind him that in Mississippi, judicial elections are nonpartisan. Every time he asks again, as if I had said nothing, if the candidate is a Democrat or a Republican.
I know what he means. Everyone knows what he means. He wants me to cut through the nonsense and tell him straight up on whose side each candidate stands. So I tell him, were judicial elections partisan, that candidate would be a Democrat or that candidate would be a Republican.
If you pay attention, you know the sides. For example, in Hinds County I received a campaign letter from the Committee to Re-elect Swan Yerger Circuit Judge. It didn’t say Republican anywhere on the page, but three Republican elected officials signed the letter. Yerger’s campaign report doesn’t say Republican anywhere on it, but individuals that politicians would consider to be Republicans contributed. Meanwhile his opponents’ campaign finance reports don’t say Democrat anywhere on it, but those individuals that you see giving to Democrats gave to Yerger’s opponents as well.
In another example, I saw a campaign letter that went out for Kenny Griffis, who is challenging Jim Brantley for the Court of Appeals. Again, Republican is nowhere on the page, but several Republican legislators signed their support to him. Is Brantley a Democrat? Judicial elections are nonpartisan, but he was appointed by Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and is supported by Dick Molpus. Is Griffis a Republican? Haley Barbour hosted a campaign event for him.
I can cut through the nonsense; you can cut through the nonsense. But the campaigns and political parties have to keep their mouths shut and play this little political game invented by the Mississippi Legislature in 1998.
The idea was to put a stop to the surgence in Republican power by making judicial elections nonpartisan and preventing Fordice Republicans from influencing judicial politics. Then Gov. Kirk Fordice vetoed that measure, only to have the Legislature override.
In doing so, the Legislature erected a cloak of confusion around judicial candidates. We call them conservative or liberal; we call them pro-business or pro-lawyer; we call them tough on crime or protector of civil rights. But we can’t call them Republican or Democrat and they can’t call themselves anything but fair. (But really, I doubt anyone running for anything would say they were anything but fair anyway.)
So all discussion of issues, beliefs and values were stripped from the judicial races. Talk about a judicial gag order. Now the electorate, confounded by choices with nothing to differentiate between candidates, has become more susceptible to the power of special interests and media buys.
And this is supposed to make judicial races, should I say it, fair?
The Mississippi Republican Party wants to make a change. GOP Chairman Jim Herring, an attorney in Canton and a former Judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, believes that the 1998 law that bars political parties from being involved in judicial campaigns is unconstitutional. The Republican Party has filed a lawsuit in federal court blocking enforcement of the law and asking that it be declared unconstitutional.
The GOP is being represented in this matter by Attorney Andy Taggart. Taggart, formerly of Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens and Cannada and now in private practice in Madison, was Chief of Staff for Gov. Fordice during his first term.
Trial lawyers have a voice in judicial elections; business has a voice in judicial elections. ICE-PAC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have voices in judicial elections. Herring believes that political parties should have voices as well.
No law respecting citizen wants a judge that is beholden to a political party, a campaign contributor or a special interest group. We need judges that will rule on the law and facts of a case. But if we’re going to elect judges, if candidates have to campaign, we should let them tell us who they are and what they believe. I want to know where a candidate goes to Church, what private sector experience they have, about their family as well as their position on issues. I would also like to know about their politics.
Does any of this influence whether or not they will be fair and address the law? No.
But this is America, and if a candidate for judge wants to tell me that he is a Democrat or a Republican, he should be allowed to do so. And if a political party wants to say they support a candidate for judge, they should be allowed to do so. It isn’t complicated; it is just cutting through the nonsense. It is just being fair.
