Embracing partisanship, Minn. judge candidates weigh in on abortion, God in courts

[Shallah Kali]

Here come the right wing activists judges - for the sake of all please everyone VOTE and pay attention to every office no matter how small lest you end up with a homophobe like Clint McCance on the Arkansas Board of Education or judges like these.

MANY states have their judges up for re-election. I know there are right wing religious groups at work in California as well as Minnesota and Iowa so they undoubtedly are at work in other states as well. Please vote and encourage others to vote carefully on every election.


http://minnesotaindependent.com/71656/dan-griffithy-greg-wersal-tim-tingelstad-conservative-judicial-candidate

Three statewide candidates are bucking longstanding tradition in the lead-up to Tuesday’s election: Judicial candidates Greg Wersal, Dan Griffith and Tim Tingelstad are openly weighing in on issues that could come before them if elected, and all three have endorsements by major political parties. Coming from tea party backgrounds, they have aligned themselves with the Republican Party, the Minnesota Family Council and, in one case, the Constitution Party of Minnesota, and fitting the conservative bent of those groups, the trio has opined about contentious social issues from abortion and homosexuality to the role of Christianity in schools and courtrooms. While these activities are legal, critics say that they could undermine the impartiality and nonpartisan nature of the judiciary.

Dan Griffith: Tea party activist opposes ban on religion in schools, government buildings

snip

Greg Wersal: Fought to overturn ban on party endorsements, fundraising in judicial races

snip

Tim Tingelstad: “Judges must be God-fearing men and women”

More at the link: http://minnesotaindependent.com/71656/dan-griffithy-greg-wersal-tim-tingelstad-conservative-judicial-candidate


Also:
Anti-retention leaders: Iowa just the start of national gay marriage battle
Campaign to 'take the country back' starts in the Hawkeye State

Their organized push to oust three state Supreme Court justices may be coming to an end when voters go to the polls next week, but local and national leaders of the campaign said flatly on Thursday that Iowa is simply the first fight of a large-scale battle over gay rights in America.

Speaking in Des Moines on the final stop of a 20-city bus tour sponsored by his organization, Tony Perkins of the Washington-D.C. based Family Research Council said the Iowa Supreme Court justices, “unleashed chaos on the state of Iowa and the entire nation,” when they ruled unanimously in April 2009 that the ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Perkins said if Iowans vote “no” on retention, “you will send a message that goes around this country that Americans have had enough and we’re taking our country back and we’re starting right here in Iowa with this Supreme Court.”

Connie Ryan Terrell, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, said in a previous interview with The Iowa Independent that national anti-gay organizations have descended on Iowa in such large numbers because they want to “test in Iowa whether or not they can do something” about gay marriage. A handful of the nation’s most influential social conservative organizations — from the New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage to the Mississippi-based American Family Association — have united to spend nearly $1 million on the campaign to oust the judges thus far.

“People need to be aware that it seems this year all of the very right wing organizations have Iowa in their sights,” Ryan Terrell said in a phone interview. “That’s a scary proposition for our state and should be a red flag to Iowans.

http://iowaindependent.com/46519/anti-retention-leaders-iowa-just-the-start-of-gay-marriage-battle

[RKP5637]

1. Glad you posted this. I don't think too many people pay enough attention to the RW

judges they are trying to slide in... generally it's a lot harder to get info. on judges, but fortunately it can be generally found on the net.

[Shallah Kali]

2. it is one reason I am glad I vote abseente so I can google people before voting

no rw/tealiban/rebiclicans will get a vote from me!

[RKP5637]

4. Yep, same here, there were sooooo many judges on the ballot this year. Then I

read about all of the money pouring in to defeat the good ones, and that's when I too was glad I was voting at home, absentee. I bet a lot of people just skip over them. That's their new game, to attack the judges now.

I really get tired of it all. It's really clear the republicans and their herd do not want a functioning society, but rather a bunch of armed packs of people running around suppressing the rights of others and deeply desire the US to be a 3rd world country.

[Shallah Kali]

3. Evil Men in Black Robes - Slate's judicial election campaign ad spooktacular

http://www.slate.com/id/2272086/

The United States Supreme Court shares some of the blame too. Thanks to a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that removed some restraints on what judicial candidates can say in election campaigns, plus a series of Supreme Court cases culminating in this year's Citizens United case, which removed the possibility of limits on campaign spending even in judicial elections, judicial election campaigns are looking more and more like other elections: They are more expensive, more professional, and much, much scarier. And this is becoming true even in some states (such as Iowa) that merely use "retention" elections, in which voters just vote "yes" or "no" on whether sitting judges should remain in office for the next term.


In short, these are distinctly frightening times—especially for those of us who believe judicial elections should be different from other elections and that it is important to maintain both the appearance and actuality of impartial justice.

A path-breaking report by Hofstra professor James Sample, the Justice at Stake Campaign, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics looking at the last decade in judicial elections reveal just how bad things have become: Between 2000 and 2009, $206.9 million was spent on judicial campaigns, more than double the amount spent in the previous decade. Special interest groups, many from outside the states where the elections are taking place, have taken to television with attack ads. And, as with campaign spending for other offices, much of this money is secret.