Electionlawblog news and commentary 1/28/06

"Ruling puts 2 candidates back on ballot"

The Dallas Morning News offers this report, which begins: "The Texas Supreme Court converted a one-horse contest for the state's highest criminal court into a three-way derby Friday, restoring two candidates to the ballot. The Supreme Court ruled that two candidates who had been disqualified from the race for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals should have received a chance to correct technical flaws in their ballot applications for the March 7 Republican primary. The third candidate, state Rep. Terry Keel, said the court overstepped the law in its 5-3 vote allowing ballot access for Dallas state District Judge Robert Francis and incumbent Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Charles Holcomb. 'What the majority essentially does is say that the election code has no meaning," he said. "It's not in dispute that both parties violated the election code.'"

"Federal Court Halts Undemocratic System of Selecting NYS Judges"

See this Brennan Center press release. The decision of the federal district court is here. >From the opinion: "As discussed below, the plaintiffs have demonstrated convincingly that local major party leaders -- not the voters or the delegates to the judicial nominating conventions --control who becomes a Supreme Court Justice and when. The highly unusual processes by which that extremely important office is filled perpetuate that control, and deprive the voters of any meaningful role. The result is an opaque, undemocratic selection procedure that violates the rights of the voters and the rights of candidates who lack the backing of the local party leaders."