Voters won’t have much choice in the state judicial races this year. In virtually every race slated for the ballot in November, voters can either choose the Republican incumbent, or leave the race blank.
With the exception of the race for chief justice of the state Supreme Court, no Democrats signed up to challenge Republican incumbents for four Supreme Court seats or three seats on each state appellate court. Pelham attorney Harry Lyons has signed on as a Democratic candidate for chief justice.
The Democratic Party cites the high cost of judicial races as a reason other Democrats have stepped up. Predictably, the opposing party has a more pointed view: “Alabamians don’t want to be associated with the Democratic Party and Barack Obama,” said GOP chairman Bill Armistead.
That should give Alabama voters pause. Perhaps the time has come for a better strategy for putting judges on the state bench.
Alabama’s judicial races have become extraordinarily contentious and, by extension, have grown to become the most expensive judicial races in the country.
If the depth of the acrimony in the campaigns doesn’t raise questions about how blind justice might be with any of the candidates on the bench, then the process itself should. A contest that requires judicial candidates to claim allegiance to a political party and all its philosophical baggage to seek an office that requires objectivity is flawed from the start.
Alabamians should insist that positions on the state courts be treated as judicial appointments instead of political offices. Otherwise, those who want to serve will be forced to play the role of a biased politician to reach a seat from which they must see every person without bias.
It makes one wonder why more candidates don’t sit out judicial races.
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