What About the Judges?

You're at your polling place on Tuesday all set to vote and there, among all of the other positions to vote on, is a list of names of judges that is your duty to decide whether they're in or out. Normally, I have followed my parents lead and voted "NO" to all of them. If I didn't know, I certainly didn't want to retain or vote in a terrible judge. These people decide the fate of other people--I better get this right.

If you have nothing else to go on, you don't want to just resort to voting for the woman as a default . Although, I have done this in the past. I figured women could have the same right to fuck it up as the men have had. That's not a good way to decide who gets to decide things. Some people have voted for the person with the less ethnic sounding name and ended up with Lyndon LaRouche supporters almost making it into office.

Who was Lyndon LaRouche, you ask? He was a crazy guy who believed Queen Elizabeth was part of a huge drug ring, and believed AIDS patients should be quarantined and we should have tanks go down the streets to enforce laws. You know, he was a moderate. LaRouche fielded some candidates here in Illinois and they beat out other Democrats in the primary and almost won their offices! There really is a better way to pick candidates.

Thanks to my friend, Unnamed, I have just read an assessment from the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screenings of judges running for office or retention in Cook County, Illinois. The alliance is comprised of: the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Chicago, Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Chicago Council of Lawyers, Cook County Bar Association, Decalogue Society of Lawyers, Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois, Illinois State Bar Association, Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago, Puerto Rican Bar Association of Illinois, and Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. They know the judges. I trust them to know if they're good or not.

I noticed that of the judges who were rated as not qualified, it was unanimous across the board. Every one of these groups thought the bad judges were bad. Universal disregard tells me something.

Thanks Unnamed. I now have a list of people to vote out, and a list to keep in.

This is better than just voting for some default or voting for extreme political crazies.