Friday, March 11, 2016
Bad Marion County Judicial Selection Bill Dies
That wretched legislation in response to a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decision last year affirming a district court ruling striking down Marion County's judicial election system as unconstitutional thankfully died in the last hours before the circus left town for the year. SB 352 would have replaced the current corrupt party slating process that dictates who becomes a judge in Marion County with a faux merit selection committee predominantly made up of party hacks appointed by state legislative leaders and county chairpersons. Tragically, the Indianapolis Bar Association backed this horrible legislative proposal without bothering to consult its rank-and-file members for feedback on the type of merit selection system members would have supported to ensure a system that truly led to judges being chosen based on merit as opposed to political clout. House Speaker Brian Bosma said the bill died over "minute details" lawmakers were unable to work out. If the bill had been sent to the governor and signed into law, a 14-member commission controlled by four members appointed by the legislative leaders and four members appointed by the Marion Co. Democratic and Republican Party Chairmen would have determined who becomes a judge in Marion County.
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6 comments:
everybody is glad it died but that being said, having 14 people select judges would be about a dozen more than selected judges under the old system. just sayin
Rumor has it that Jennifer Ping and Tom John were lobbying at the last-minute to get the bill killed. Must not have been written to the liking of Ice Miller and Bose McKinney since their opinions matter more than the public's opinion.
So the public remains stuck with judges paying bribes to get slated and would be judges having to prostitute their integrity in order to obtain "advancement" in their profession. If the judge system is corrupt (and most folks can see that it is) then don't we allow other corruption to proceed unharmed by, say, prosecutors? A lot depends on the independence of judges in our system of jurisprudence.....any sort of corruption tends to spread....as most folks in Marion County can see.
Presumably, the legislature will pass something in 2017 ahead of the next election where judges are scheduled to be elected.
A government you can't vote for isn't your government, and you aren't bound to respect it.
Marion County GOP and Democrat leadership will want a bill that has county chairmen controlling the process - which then allows party bosses to extract tens of thousands of dollars from the judge candidates.
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