Judicial Candidates

ELECTION INFORMATION: Minnesota related; and National information.  My position on 2024 election, here.

The specifics of this post apply to Minnesota, but you may find this useful wherever you live.  Executive summary: I will vote for all incumbents on the judicial portion of the Nov. 5 ballot.  If you wish, more below.

On my election ballot for Nov. 5, are 23 Judicial elections.  This is not unusual and consistent with Minnesota Law.

(There are about 300 Judges in Minnesota, divided among 10 Judicial Districts.  All positions are non-partisan and have terms; most run unopposed.  Opposition is allowed.  Distinguished career Supreme Court Judge Alan Page was elected under the system.)

Occasionally there are clearly unqualified candidates.  They are exposed in the old fashioned way: networks of information: the word gets around.

The Minnesota House of Representatives has a very interesting guide to the Minnesota Judiciary, here.  Start with page five of this guide.  Page 10 talks about term and election of judges.

Personally, I haven’t voted yet, and a short while ago came an informative newspaper column (Here is the D. J. Tice column in  the Minnesota Star Tribune.) which in turn caused me to refer to the website of the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA) which has a process for at least informally assessing Judicial candidates on the ballot.

Here is the MSBA website, for your election information: the Minnesota State Bar Association poll is a very useful link assessing  the candidates in contested judicial elections.

Mostly, the 23  on my ballot are unopposed and thus do not have to campaign.  In essence, their performance record is their campaign.  In two Supreme Court and one Appellate Court seat, there are two candidates.  And one Judge in my Judicial District (#10) has a competitor.  In each case, the Bar Association poll of members gives the nod to the incumbents.

So, in my case, I will vote for all of the incumbents listed, even if I’ve never heard of most of them, based on faith in the system of justice in this state.

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Some personal comments on the judicial system follow.  I write as an ordinary non-lawyer citizen whose work career involved a lot of work with, against and around lawyers.

PERSONAL COMMENTS:

Like the vast majority of citizens, my direct contact with “The Law” as an individual has thankfully been rare and low-end, like parking tickets.  At the same time, I know lots of people and lots of circumstances, and while I do spend most of my time within my own town, the odds someone I know encountering the Law somewhere else in this country, is at least as high as encountering it here.  And when you encounter the Law, wherever you might be, you are hoping that your rights will be respected wherever you are.

While this post is about state jurisprudence, a short while ago, a reader of this blog – a Canadian – wrote as follows about U.S.jurisprudence: “I find it very strange that in the U.S., judges are either elected or appointed by senators. In my view, this politicization undermines the principle of the separation of powers. Recently, Mexico also decided to elect judges, which many argue signals a serious threat to democracy. I don’t see how a Democrat can receive a fair trial if a Republican prosecutor campaigns on promises to lock up the “enemy”—and the same holds true in reverse.”

My correspondent was commenting on the increasing threat of using the Law politically to punish political opponents.  This is no longer an abstract possibility.  It is an active threat.

Like all systems, anywhere, Minnesota’s is imperfect, and perfection is probably not attainable.  On the other hand, while the existing system seems to work pretty well, with a legal system that respects the rights of the accused and seems generally to have escaped much serious controversy over the years, there is room for improvement.

Like most everyone, I can identify ideas for reform, but that is unproductive here.  We can and should work for systemic change through the appropriate channels.

Any Law is open to interpretation, which means lawyers are needed to argue, and judges to rule, and appeal processes to review and if need be, revise. The system itself presumes imperfection.   The dynamic changes if the Law becomes a partisan cudgel; where the objective is to control the legislative process – what the Law is – and who interprets what the Law means – the Court.

An independent judiciary with the right to appeal is crucial.  Of course, there are inequities here as well.  The rich can afford more justice than the poor, one can say.  The color of one’s skin, or the language one speaks, also factor. .

I think most all of us can identify with some “there but for the grace of god go I” situation.  Personally, it is easy to come up with examples within my own sphere.  So can anyone else.

What Tice and my Canadian friend did, for me, was to cause me to pay a bit more attention to the reality in which we all live.

The U.S. Supreme Court is the most recent and most glaring example of boundary issues.  If you’ve read this sentence you know what I am suggesting is a present day reality.

What worries me even more than the partisan angle, is the religious one – where ‘religious belief’ intrudes on and overrides fact.  My own church leadership (Catholic) has its “nose in the tent”, challenging separation of church and state, falsely claiming its members right to religious freedom to control other persons beliefs is somehow being abridged (the ‘life’ and anti-women’s rights narrative).

A recent example (among many) is now happening in Oklahoma, where public schools were required by state directive to have a particular Bible (aka the so-called “Trump Bible”, King James, with Constitution, leather-like cover, etc.), as official part of the requirement.  As I write, the directive  has been softened, but still requiring the King James Version, which is the Protestant version.

How do Oklahoma Catholics react?   There are plenty of them in Oklahoma.  .

Keeping the partisan ‘camel’ out of the court ‘tent’ to the greatest extent possible is a good thing, in my opinion.  And it is citizens like ourselves who can assure this continues.

POSTNOTE: My Canadian friends take on the matter:  In Canada, the notion of “weaponizing the judiciary” is unheard of, as the judicial system is viewed as impartial and largely insulated from political influence. Unlike the U.S., where the Supreme Court has increasingly been drawn into partisan conflicts, Canada’s Supreme Court has maintained a reputation for independence. Judicial appointments in Canada follow a more transparent and non-partisan process, with justices chosen based on merit rather than ideological allegiance. In Canada, judicial integrity is fiercely protected, and while criticisms of rulings do occur, the judiciary is rarely, if ever, seen as a tool for advancing political agendas.

You might find this article insightful as it delves into these differences.

In some states, private Catholic schools are subsidized by the state. Some conservative Catholics want to turn the US into a theocracy, like some evangelists.

I like the Minnesota trifecta.

POSTNOTE 2:  I’ve always appreciated a 52 page booklet published by the American Bar Association in the late 1950s in connection of Law Day by President Eisenhower.  The booklet is presented in four separate links. Law Day Am Bar Assoc 1959; Law Day (2) Am Bar Assoc 1959; Law Day (3) Am Bar Assoc 1959; Law Day (4) Am Bar Assoc 1959