#Judicial Elections

[originalleftist]

Y'all, there is a run-off election for the Mississippi Supreme Court in six days (Tuesday November 26th 2024).

Moderate Justice Jim Kitchens is facing a runoff against MAGA fascist Jenifer Branning.

Please support Jim Kitchens- vote if you're an eligible Mississippi voter, and if not, help to get out the vote!

Let's show these MAGA fucks America doesn't belong to them yet!

[elimgarakdemocrat]

the klingon do NOT have partisan judges. you CANT say this

Do you really think the Klingons would not have partisan elected judges? Every single ad for a judge is the most obnoxious jingle over a guy saying "I promise if elected I will be tough on crime" and then killing a targ with a knife

[originalleftist]

I will add to this, you can check out:

-Blue Voter Guide, for Democratic voters.

-State government sites may have information on candidates - for example my state of Colorado gave performance ratings of judicial candidates.

-State Bar Associations may also have information on judicial candidates

And of course, you can try local news, but be wary of bias (as with all sources).

Please don't tune out when you get to the non-partisan section of your ballot this November. First off, where state Supreme Court justices are elected, Republicans are trying their darndest to elect candidates who will destroy reproductive freedom, gut voting rights, and do everything in their power to give "contested" elections to Republicans. Contrast Wisconsin electing a justice in 2023 who helped rule two partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional, versus North Carolina electing a conservative majority in 2022, who upheld a racist voter ID law and a partisan gerrymander that liberal justices had previously struck down both of.

Second, local judicial offices will make infinitely more of an impact on your community than a divided state or federal legislature will. District and circuit courts, especially, are where criminalization of homelessness and poverty play out, and where electing a progressive judge with a commitment to criminal justice reform can make an immediate difference in people's lives.

It's a premier example of buying people time, and doing profound-short-term good, while we work to eventually change the system. You might not think there will be any such progressive justices running in your district, but you won't know unless you do your research. (More on "research" in a moment.)

The candidates you elect to your non-partisan city council will determine whether those laws criminalizing homelessness get passed, how many blank checks the police get to surveil and oppress, and whether lifesaving harm reduction programs, like needle exchanges and even fentanyl test strips, are legal in your municipality. Your non-partisan school board might need your vote to fend off Moms for Liberty candidates and their ilk, who want to ban every book with a queer person or acknowledgement of racism in it.

Of course, this begs the question — if these candidates are non-partisan, and often hyper-local, then how do I research them? There's so much less information and press about them, so how do I make an informed decision?

I'm not an expert, myself. But I do think/hope I have enough tips to consist of a useful conclusion to this post:

Plan ahead. If you vote in person, figure out what's on your ballot before you show up and get jumpscared by names you don't know. Find out what's on your ballot beforehand, and bring notes with you when you vote. Your city website should have a sample ballot, and if they drop the ball, go to Ballotpedia.

Ballotpedia in general, speaking of which. Candidates often answer Ballotpedia's interviews, and if you're lucky, you'll also get all the dirt on who's donating to their campaign.

Check endorsements. Usually candidates are very vocal about these on their websites. If local/state progressive leaders and a couple unions (not counting police unions lol) are endorsing a candidate, then that's not the end of my personal research process per se, but it usually speeds things up.

Check the back of the ballot. That's where non-partisan races usually bleed over to. This is the other reason why notes are helpful, because they can confirm you're not missing anything.

[alwaysbewoke]

[deadpresidents]

I just hope these next 4 years go by fast

This election isn't just about the next four years. With Trump in the White House and a Republican Senate at his side, the MAGA movement can pick up where they left off when it comes to packing the federal judiciary with right-wing judges who will control the Supreme Court and appellate courts throughout the country potentially for the rest of the lives of everyone reading this right now. It's the perfect recipe for them to continue stripping reproductive rights away from women nationwide and gives them the opportunity to turn their attention to the other issues that they have been dying to attack, from voting rights to gay marriage and every other extension of personal freedom that has been won by minorities and marginalized people in hard-fought battles over the past 60 years. This is the nightmare scenario that people have been warning folks about for the past few elections. It's here. And there isn't going to be a way to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

The consequences of this election will have a direct, negative impact on your life -- possibly on the entire remainder of your life. This country just re-elected a President with authoritarian tendencies who is the willing puppet of a dangerous Christian nationalist movement that figured out exactly how to manipulate him (through flattery) for their aims. They have created the perfect vehicle for a genuine cult of personality that they can use to achieve the goals they have been very clear about striving for over the past few years. And you can't blame anybody other than the American voters because they not only elected Trump, but they gave him a fucking mandate, with a Republican Senate and potentially a Republican House. They already have a right-wing dominated Supreme Court for the next few decades, and now they are going to ensure that the entire federal judiciary is in their control for years to come. And don't forget the fact that a few months ago, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that gave Presidents sweeping immunity for a broad (and conveniently undefined) range of "official" acts, so Trump is going to go into this second term knowing that not only does he not have to deal with the "guardrails" of responsible adults he had around him in his first term (Mattis, Tillerson, Kelly, General Milley, etc), but he knows he can get away with virtually anything and everything that he wants to do this time around. If you thought that Trump's first term was bad, just understand that they are prepared this time and now he's surrounded himself with people who will do his bidding -- people who are perfectly willing to let Trump be Donald Trump.

I wish there was a reason to cry foul, lodge protests, and challenge the election's results. But this wasn't a rigged election. There isn't any confusion about what the voters really wanted. The American people did this. People you know and care about and who say they care about you are the people who did this. We need to recognize that these elections aren't outliers anymore. Trump's supporters aren't simply chaos agents who got lucky on a bad day for the Democrats. That's the country we live in now and we have to find a way to resist it that actually makes a difference because now they have the keys to all the doors and all of the alarm codes. This country has normalized the conspiracy theories and nativism and racism that has powered the MAGA movement since the moment Trump came down the elevator at Trump Tower in 2015. He's given those people permission to be open with their hatred towards people who aren't like them, and it's actually become surprising to see how many Americans have been eager to take advantage of that. I didn't think I had any misconceptions about this country before Donald Trump because I recognized this nation's history, but I clearly had some misconceptions about people I thought I knew until I saw them wearing a red MAGA hat or noticed they had a gigantic flag with Trump's name hanging where their U.S. flag used to hang. Once that happened, it was like a switch went off with them and they started saying things in ways that I'd never heard them speak. I feel like that's happened to the entire country. It breaks my heart and it pisses me off.

For the past few years, I've been warning everybody about how elections have consequences. I imagine that there are hundreds of posts on this blog with that phrase in all caps listed with the tags. Now the elections have happened, and we have to live with real fucking consequences. And we're going to pass these consequences on to other generations because this is the one that you can't get a do-over on. When you give a movement like this the power and the mandate that this country just gave them, there is no easily rolling back the things that they end up doing. They are going to fundamentally change the lives of people in this nation and especially change the way the younger generations of Americans live and love and learn for years to come. And you have people in your life who made that happen. It's another disgusting day in America -- a prelude to another reprehensible four years (at the very least) -- and I'm ashamed of tens of millions of my fellow Americans because this one is on them. They know exactly who the man is that they voted for, and now we know exactly who they are, too.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

The GOP-controlled North Carolina State Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked certification of liberal justice Allison Riggs' 2024 victory, allowing the Republican who lost the race to present his argument about why 60,000 ballots cast in the race should be thrown out. Riggs, an incumbent on the court, defeated Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin by 748 votes—a narrow victory that was affirmed by two recounts. But Griffin is refusing to concede and instead wants the court to throw out 60,000 ballots based on a ridiculous claim that those voters were illegally registered. Griffin claims those voters did not put their Social Security or driver's license numbers on their voter registration forms, rendering their votes invalid. State and national Republicans used that same argument to try and purge 225,000 voters from the rolls in North Carolina before ballots were cast in the 2024 election. But both the State Board of Elections and a federal judge ruled against the Republicans in that case. Now Griffin wants the court to retroactively disqualify voters—many of them Democratic—so that he can be declared the winner of a race he lost.

The Republican-majority North Carolina Supreme Court shamefully cosigns the GOP’s attempt to steal an election by refusing to certify Democratic Judge Allison Riggs’s victory over Republican Jefferson Griffin.

[gwydionmisha]

This win was essential for saving democracy and a huge relief.

[detroitpedxing]

Alito Set to Destroy Republicans’ Trump-Packed Supreme Court Dreams

Justice Samuel Alito has slammed the door on overeager Republicans’ hopes for a Trump-packed Supreme Court. 

With Republicans inching toward trifecta control of the House, Senate, and White House after their sweeping victory last week, the party has now turned its attention to the nation’s highest court. Republicans will have at least two years of uninhibited ability to mold the Supreme Court in their image, especially if conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Alito—76 and 74, respectively—get the message and step down. 

But Alito quickly shut down rumors of his retirement. 

“Despite what some people may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job from a political perspective,” a friend of Alito told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. “The idea that he’s going to retire for political considerations is not consistent with who he is.”

Alito was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006 and has been a bastion of conservative originalism ever since. He penned the opinion on the devastating overturning of Roe v. Wade, something that was made possible in part thanks to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing away in 2020, after stubbornly refusing calls to step down during President Barack Obama’s term—giving President Donald Trump the conservative majority needed to overturn the crucial reproductive rights law.  

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 70, has also faced calls for her to step down, but she has no plans to retire either.

[pearls-n-opulence]

so is anyone going to talk about all three branches of government being republican dominated or

[tomorrowusa]

Regardless of emoluments, Justice Alito has shown that he's the most fervent MAGA justice on the US Supreme Court. He now even beats out Justice Thomas.

Samuel Alito Can’t Even Lie Properly About That Upside-Down Flag

At the very least, Alito needs to recuse himself from all Trump-related court cases. Though frankly, he should be impeached.

Alito was appointed to SCOTUS by George W. Bush. Bush won the 2000 election after the Supreme Court stopped vote recounting in Florida as Democrat Al Gore was closing the gap with Bush. And we remember that Alito wrote the majority opinion in the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Think of Alito when you're tempted to waste a vote on an impotent third party candidate who has no chance of getting elected president and appointing Supreme Court justices.

[originalleftist]

If your ballot is anything like mine, judicial elections are a big part of it.

And since the judges aren't neatly identified by party, and their rulings can often be complex, it can require quite a bit of research and thought to figure out who to vote for (you should still check candidates' backgrounds regardless, as Republicans have been trying to run candidates as Democrats, but its especially crucial for judges).

So, here are some resources that may be useful:

Ballotpedia:

Blue Voter Guide (for Democrats, obviously):

Blue Voter Guide was how I found out which of the state Supreme Court judges up for reelection in CO voted for, or dissented on, the ruling to disqualify Trump.

State government sites may have more information- here's the 2024 Judicial Performance Evaluations for my state (Colorado):

I have also been informed that state Bar Associations will often have rankings of judges.

And of course, you can check local news outlets.

But, be aware of potential bias in all sources.

PLEASE REBLOG AND SHARE THIS WIDELY.

[jangillman]

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[maxknightley]

Are you also not voting this year

I'm voting for Hamas

[alwaysbewoke]

[deadpresidents]

I hope I'm not jinxing things, but do you see President Harris picking former President Obama for the next vacancy on the SCOTUS?

I'd be stunned if President Obama had any interest in being nominated to the Supreme Court. I think any former President would have a difficult time adjusting to being one of nine justices after the experience of being the most powerful person in the world during their Presidency. President Obama has a deliberative temperament, but I think the judiciary requires an entirely different form of deliberation and I imagine Obama would feel handcuffed as a member of the Supreme Court.

William Howard Taft was appointed to the Supreme Court after leaving the White House and spent nearly nine years (1921-1930) as Chief Justice, but he's the exception to the rule when it comes to former Presidents and the Court. Taft was a judge before he was an executive, and it was his lifelong dream to sit on the Supreme Court, not to be President. Taft had actively worked to be appointed to the Supreme Court as far back as 1889 when Benjamin Harrison was President, but the politics or the timing just never worked out in his favor until after his Presidency. If it had been up to Taft, he would have gladly traded his time in the Executive Branch (under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt) and four years in the White House for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Despite his background in Constitutional law, I think Barack Obama has always been an activist at heart, and while we now have a hyper-political Supreme Court, I don't see the judiciary as the place where Obama wants to spend the rest of his post-Presidency.

(Plus, if/when a President Harris fills a vacancy on the Supreme Court, it's probably best if she picks someone younger than Obama in order to lock down that seat for as long as possible.)