Question #122: Lobby Hobby
Dear Little Bald Bastard,
How do you spend your time when you aren't being a tool on the Internets?
- Devil in the Details
Dear Devil in the Details,
Although my voluminous post count belies it, I actually do have interests that don't involve telling strangers how stupid I think they are on the Internet. I like to read, I play a video game or two, and I have a lucrative business waxing badgers for private collectors.*
The biggest chunk of my non-bastardly day is taken up by my studies. I'm in my second year of law school, which means I spend approximately eleventy million hours a week poring over casebooks.
As part of my laws school experience, I lucked into an internship with Pennsylvanians For Modern Courts. PMC is a policy group working to reform the judiciary in Pennsylvania, and to educate citizens about how to access and navigate the courts.
Coincidentally, we just launched a new blog, called JudgesOnMerit.org, which is all about our campaign to replace partisan election of appellate judges with a Merit Selection plan. I'll spare you my pro-Merit screed. I'll just say that I hadn't ever thought about judicial elections before November of 2007. Now I love Merit Selection like a pirate loves booty.
If you like politics, if you're concerned about judicial fairness, or if you just want to help a bastard out, go take a look at JudgesOnMerit.org. See if you can recognize my writing when I'm not allowed to use profanity.
*You don't want to know how hard it is to get insurance.
3 comments:
Yes, yes, yes, yes. The most insane thing I never realized until I got out of law school was the idea of elected Judges, at any level. It makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever. First, how can the average person determine whether they support a judge candidate? The candidates are forbidding to take public positions on legal questions that they might have to rule on. So, you're left with party affiliation, hardly a good forecaster of judicial proficiency. And how is a Judge supposed to finance a campaign and still maintain some veneer of impartiality? It's always lawyers giving to Judge's campaigns. I wonder why. (No, I don't.)
I remember we had one Judge which all the attorney's in my area wished to boot off the bench. The judge had actually been suspended by the state's Supreme Court due to abuse of power and unprofessionalism, but the Judge kept being re-elected. Finally, the Judge lost a re-election, but only years after damaging who knows how many cases. I guarantee there was not one lawyer in the area who voted for that Judge.
One of the reasons why the issue has gotten more prominent is that the Supreme Court has struck down a lot of the restrictions on what judges can say.
In Minnesota v. White, the Court struck down Minnesota's codes of conduct for judicial conduct as being restrictive of free speech. Basically, the only thing that a judicial candidate can't do is tacitly promise to rule one way or another on a specific issue.
This has opened up the field, so to speak, and it's turning judicial campaigns into much more political affairs. This in turn is bringing in a lot more donations, and their potential conflicts of interest.
Hang on while I get a tablecloth to cover my soapbox. =)
I have a PhD in political science--I'm supposed to be smart, and know what I'm doing in the voting booth.
And I have no frickin' idea who to vote for in a judicial election.
I have seen ads from judges running for re-election promising to get tougher on crime. My read is, "F*** due process--I'll shred the Constitution if it will buy your vote."
Probably the most important political change to be made in this country, closely followed by the need to create non-partisan redistricting boards.
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