Sunday, May 21, 2017

ARE JUDGES TWEAKING THE ELECTORAL PROCESS??

by Bob Walsh

A bill is progressing through the legislature of the formerly great state of California that would place limits on the self-description that judges can put into the ballot pamphlet concerning themselves and their history. It is common to find that a judge bills him/herself as a "domestic violence prosecutor" or a "hard-core anti-gang prosecutor" when in fact they are an ordinary, run-of-the-mill assistant D.A. prosecuting the cases they are assigned.

If passed into law this bill, SB235, would limit candidates in judicial election to such things as "attorney at law" or "assistant district attorney" It would accomplish this by limited the judges to three words to describe their professional history. Judicial races in CA are typically low-budget affairs and there are already laws that restrict what judicial candidates can say, so this just might fly.

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