Big surprise!

I already knew how I felt about the divorce judges in my county, they all need to be unemployed. But today I looked up judicial rankings for the other judges so I could make an informed vote. We are lucky enough (out of necessity) that our good ole boy judge network is so corrupt that a coalition was formed to inform the voters about the judges credentials. Four different groups and new newspapers rate all elected judges and put their ratings online.

It is imperfect as the bar and the power circles have some impact on the judicial ratings, but they do rate some judges as "adequate (1)" or "Not recommended (0)". And it beats the bias ads.

So while I was reviewing the various judges, I came across the divorce judges. The chief administrative divorce judge has been stone walling the State Supreme Court investigation into "the worst divorce court in the State". So it came as little surprise that he also refused to cooperate with all six rating agencies, earning himself a rating of 0.0 out of 4.0.

The second divorce judge up for election did cooperate and received a "Not recommended (0)" rating from all agencies, for a rating of 0.0 out of 4.0.

My divorce judge is a political power broker with the famous brand name and was able to get a 3.0 out of 4.0, and as for judicial skills that may be fine. But when you factor in corruption, theft in office ($75,000/year), and ruining people's lives I think he too deserves a rating of 0.0. Imagine how bad the other two were to get that. My judge is not running for re-election, but rather for a promotion to Chief Probate judge where he can wreck havoc on the lives of married and divorced alike.

So I did not vote for any of these three, NO! But that doesn't matter, they have already won. They, like many other judges in our one party county, won the Democratic Primary and were running unopposed. This election is a meaningless formality as the unqualified will wrongfully take their place in our corrupt government and pass judgment on us.

Too bad our local judges can't be handled like presidential judicial or cabinet nominees. If the legislature (or in our case the judicial rating agencies) believe all candidates are unqualified, they simply refuse to allow them to take office and another candidate must be submitted. Crazy idea? Or is having 0.0 out of 4.0 candidates getting into office even more crazy? I think the latter is crazy. No judge is better than an incompetent one.

What of my judge's 3.0 rating, should he be allowed to get in? Well as soon as he is promoted out of the Divorce Court (Jan 2009) and can no longer control my case, I will be writing letters to every judicial rating agency and suggesting that the judge's ethics be considered along with their judicial skill. The best judicial skill means nothing when ethics are absent.

Anyone else who shares my location, or has this problem in another area and wants to join my effort or share my ideas, please email me. Our rating agencies have very clear definitions of their standards and I have very strong evidence of how my judge has violated these standards. Even if you live elsewhere, my case may serve as a good example of the activism needed.

Why bother? I've been fucked, and getting corrupt judges unemployed won't undo that. That is an irresponsible attitude I will not take. It is lazy silent inaction that acts as a co-conspirator to corruption.

Speak up, or shut up and don't complain (jqism).

So how did I vote? Any candidate with 3.0 and less did not get my vote, even if they were unopposed and that included all three divorce judges and a few others too. Wouldn't it be wonderful if others did that too? It might be humiliating and at least send a strong message if an unopposed incompetent was sent to office with less than 10% of the vote. Stay tuned, I'll be looking for the final vote counts.

And what of the other unopposed, did I just leave them blank, since they are getting in anyway? No, if they had a rating close to 4.0 and I believed they were a good candidate, they got my vote.

You still have a choice with only one candidate! Vote for them if they are qualified or leave them blank if they are not. To fill them all in, because they are the only choice, or to leave them all blank because they will be shooed in, are both irresponsible and derilection of your civic duty.