Tag Archives: partisan elections

State news

Hate partisan election of judges

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I want to raise an issue that I have bitched about for years, but which needs further bitching from me.

It deals with the partisan election of judges in Texas. Yes, judicial candidates in this state run as Democrats and Republicans. They don’t run necessarily on their judicial philosophy, which should be the determining factor on whether to elect these men and women. Oh, no. They run as partisan politicians.

For the life of me I do not understand why we cannot shed the party labels for judicial candidates.

For nearly four decades watching Texas politics up close and personal I have seen fine men and women drummed out of office because they were of the “wrong party,” or the party that wasn’t in control of the political landscape. Good Republican judges and candidates would lose to inferior Democratic opponents in the old days because they ran as members of the “out” party. Then the tide turned in Texas and we have watched qualified Democratic judges and judicial candidates losing to numbskull Republicans for the same reason; Republicans dominate politics in this state and Democrats are still trying to get a foothold.

I have asked judges and those who want to be judges a question ever since I arrived in Texas in early 1984: What is the difference between Democratic justice and Republican justice?

So help me, I cannot remember a single cogent answer to that question. Not a single judge or judicial contender has been able to answer that one for me. I hope during the upcoming election season to be able to ask future candidates for judicial office that question.

Judicial candidates should run on their philosophy and how they interpret the law. I am not a lawyer, but I know enough to be able to discern the difference between a liberal judicial candidate and a conservative one. Whether those differences comport with partisan labels is utterly beside the point.

I know full well my argument won’t hold much sway with those in power. I will keep harping on it, though, until I no longer can harp on anything. Texas’s partisan election of judges does not do justice to the judicial system.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Might there be a judicial election reform on tap?

Readers of this blog are aware of this fundamental truth: I detest, hate, loathe the way we elect judges in Texas.

We elect them at every level on partisan ballots. The system stinks. It has resulted in good judges being tossed out of office only because they belong to the party that isn’t in power in the moment. Republican or Democrat. It doesn’t matter. The partisan election of judges sucks out loud, man!

There might be a change in the works. A legislative effort is underway to study how to bring a needed change. It is running into a major roadblock in the form of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Texas Senate.

According to the Texas Tribune, Patrick is “skeptical” of potential changes in the way we choose our judges. He said something about Texans preferring to elect their judges. Well, duh! I get that. I am not totally on board with an appointment system. I want at the very least to see an election system that allows judges to run on non-partisan ballots.

A former state senator, Republican Bob Duncan, has been a longtime champion for reforming the election system. The Legislature has created a commission to study ways to repair the system. Duncan agrees with Patrick that there needs to be total buy-in if there’s going to be a change. If only the lieutenant governor would throw his support behind a judicial reform effort; Gov. Greg Abbott already has done so. We’ll have a new House speaker in the next session and my hope is that he or she will sign on, too.

I keep asking: What is the difference between Republican justice and Democratic justice? I cannot determine a partisan difference. There are differences in judicial philosophy that have nothing to do with partisan consideration. So why not forces judges to run on their judicial philosophy?

I used to argue for a reform that creates a judicial appointment system; it would require judges to run for “retention.” I don’t think that will happen in Texas. I am going to hold out some hope that Texas can find a way to change the judicial election system from a purely partisan effort to a non-partisan system.

It makes sense and in my view is going to deliver a better quality of judges who adjudicate justice on behalf of all of us.

political news

Why run on partisan labels at City Hall?

A headline in today’s New York Times caught my attention and gave me a moment’s pause.

It reads: “Bill de Blasio — the best Democratic choice for mayor.”

It has occurred to me on more than one occasion during the many years I reported and commented on politics wherever I have lived and worked that it makes no sense for municipal candidates to run on partisan tickets.

Why in the world does it matter if a mayor or city council member is a Democrat or a Republican? Someone has to explain to me the validity of forcing these folks to run under the banner of any political party. Do elected municipal officials tend to the needs of constituents based on their party affiliation? They had better not.

I get that NYC is a heavily Democratic city. But if someone calls City Hall with a complaint about, oh, a barking dog or a troublesome pothole or a street light that needs repair, does the city staffer ask the caller whether he or she is a Democrat or Republican?

I realize these are issues to be settled within each community. Sitting out here in Amarillo, Texas, I shouldn’t really care about the politics of New York City. And, in fact, I don’t … not really.

It just sticks in my craw a little bit that some cities in America actually elect municipal officials on partisan ballots.

I prefer the way we do it in Amarillo, or in Beaumont, where we lived for a time before moving to the Panhandle, or in Portland, Ore., the city of my birth. They all elect their governing officials on non-partisan ballots.

I remember one year in Amarillo when a challenger to the incumbent mayor sought to urge “good Republicans” to vote for her. We slapped her down hard at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked as editorial page editor. She lost to the incumbent.

I’ve actually argued that county-wide offices need not be partisan, either. Someone needs to explain to me how a tax assessor-collector, or county clerk, or country treasurer, or district clerk, or a sheriff, or district attorney does his or her job on the basis of what’s “good for the party.”

We seem to elect everyone in Texas. We even elect constables — which in my view is the most useless public office any county can employ. I’ll save that argument for another blog post, though. Even constables, for crying out loud, are elected on partisan ballots.

And don’t even get me started on why we elect judges as Democrats and Republicans. I detest partisan election of judges perhaps most of all, given that so many good men and women are tossed off the bench simply because they belong to the “wrong political party.” It’s happened to stellar Democrats in Texas during the past two or three decades; and it happened to equally stellar Republicans back when Democrats were the party in power.

There. My morning rant against partisan politics is over. Nothing will change. I do feel better, though.

political news

About those elected offices …

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Let’s take an earlier blog post briefly to the next level.

I questioned why we elect certain officials in Texas on partisan ballots, why we choose between Democrats and Republicans.

Here’s the blog.

A friend poses an excellent question: Why must we elect some of these officials at all?

He makes the excellent point that tax assessor-collectors, district clerks, county clerks and treasurers — all countywide elected offices — don’t set policy. They follow policy set by state legislators and, to a lesser degree, by county commissioners. They are “functionaries,” he says.

I guess I harken back to an earlier point: Texans love to elect people to public office. It’s in our political DNA, I reckon. Perhaps we like to hold them accountable to us exclusively; we don’t want some intermediary standing between these individuals and the people who elect them.

But my friend’s point remains well-taken.

Then again, that would call for an even more drastic leap of faith were we to recommend such a drastic change to our antiquated Texas Constitution.

I’m willing to take it.

 

political news, State news

Partisan labels ought to go

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democrat_republican

I arrived in Texas in the spring of 1984 with my eyes open about the state’s vigorous political climate.

Perhaps I should have opened my eyes just a little bit wider so that I could see something that got past me as I studied up on the way things would be done in my new home state.

I knew that Texans like to elect people to public office. We have more elected offices than I’d ever seen, for instance, at the county level.

What I didn’t quite grasp, though, were the partisan labels that we attach to all the candidates. Perhaps most fascinating is how we elect judges in this state — as Republicans or Democrats.

My new Texas home would be — for my first 11 years in this state — in Beaumont, where Democrats ruled. Indeed, the entire state was still controlled by Democrats, who held most of the elective office statewide.

What I couldn’t quite grasp, though, is why we elect choose Democrats and Republicans among candidates seeking public office.

I’m left now, 32 years later, to keep asking: Can someone identify for me the difference between a Democratic and a Republican tax assessor-collector, or county clerk, or district clerk, or treasurer? For that matter, does a sheriff or district attorney arrest and prosecute criminal suspects differently if they’re Democrat or Republican?

I posed these questions once in a column I wrote for the Amarillo Globe-News. I got an interesting response from a county elected official — a loyal Republican, naturally — who agreed with me. She couldn’t fathom the difference, either, between how individuals of one party would do the job she took an oath to do any differently from individuals of another party.

Judgeships have proved to be the most troublesome.

In the early to mid-1980s, solid Republican were getting booted out of office or were losing elections simply because they were of the wrong party. It was wrong then, just as it is wrong now to see more qualified Democratic candidates losing to Republicans for precisely the same reason.

I don’t intend — yet — to make this a major issue for this blog. I just feel inclined to suggest that a change to a more reasonable and logical election system would serve the state better than the system we have now.

State legislators, governors and other statewide officeholders — except judges — surely can make the case that partisan differences exist. I’m fine with that.

Judges? That’s another matter.

I’ve all but given up arguing for a retention system in which judges are appointed and then stand for retention at the ballot box. At this point, I’d settle for a change in the way we elect judges, simply by having them run on their judicial philosophy rather than on whether they belong to a certain political party.

How would we change all that? Through a constitutional amendment, which requires a vote of all Texans — and which is equally cumbersome, antiquated and nonsensical.

That, though, is a subject for another day.

 

local news, political news, State news

Democratic or Republican justice?

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Two candidates for Potter County justice of the peace seem to have something in common, even though they represent differing political parties.

They both dislike electing judges on partisan ballots in Texas.

Wisdom crosses party lines, yes? Good deal.

A commentary in the Amarillo Globe-News took note of their shared dislike of partisan judicial elections. Democratic incumbent Nancy Bosquez is being challenged by Republican Richard Herman for the Precinct 2 JP post. Bosquez has been JP for several terms. I don’t know much about Herman.

Here’s the deal, though: I can make a case that no political office needs to be elected on a partisan basis, other than for the Legislature, governor and lieutenant governor.

All the rest of them, from attorney general, comptroller, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner … and on down through the county ballots, with the exception of county commissioner and county judge need not be elected on partisan ballots.

Have you ever wondered whether a county tax assessor-collector does his or her job based on her or her party’s political platform? Does a Democratic tax collector do the job differently than a Republican one? Same for treasurer, district attorney, even sheriff. How do you tell the difference between a Democratic law enforcement official and a Republican one?

The judge races drive me the most nuts.

I can understand Bosquez’s discomfort with partisan judicial elections, given that she serves in a heavily Republican county. Yes, her particular precinct leans Democratic, but it leans less in that direction than it did, say, a decade ago.

But the point is valid no matter one’s political affiliation. How does a Democratic JP adjudicate small claims cases differently from a Republican JP?

I’ve noted many times in the past regarding these partisan judicial races: Too many good judges from he “out” party get the boot when the tide favors candidates from the other party. That’s been the case in Texas dating back about three decades, when Republicans ascended to power. Democratic judges have been ousted by inferior Republican opponents — and exactly the same thing happened in reverse when Democrats held every office under the big Texas sky.

I’ll keep harping on the need to reform this goofy election system of ours, even though it’s falling on deaf ears.

Meantime, be sure to vote on Nov. 4.