Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Lake County News-Sun: Elect Judges Val Ceckowski and George Bridges; But Wait, Terry Link's Politics Lurk Behind the Judicial Elections...

Today the News-Sun endorsed sitting judges Valerie Ceckowski and George Bridges for election to the two new subcircuit judgeships. We heartily concur, in that their opponents, David Weinstein and Jay Ukena, appear to bring little to the table.

As the News-Sun pointed out, considering that the subcircuits were supposedly added to bring more diversity to the bench, the only diversity that the Democratic candidates would bring is the fact they are Democrats. The GOP candidates, Ceckowski and Bridges, a woman and an African-American man, respectively, appear to enhance diversity on the bench much more so than the two male Caucasian Democratic candidates (one of whom (Weinstein) I can't help mentioning reminds me of Zoltar, the mechanical fortune-teller). Ironic since the Dems claim their party is the champion of minorities.

Oddly, what the News-Sun missed in both its editorial and its accompanying overview article of the subcircuit race is that behind the scene of all of this is... you guessed it... our old pal, State Senator Terry Link. Even the News-Sun seems to have forgotten the massive flip-flop Link did a few years ago when he tried to create new judgeships that would be elected by subcicuit to try to promote the election of more Democrats to the bench. He flubbed this legislation and then tried to (and was successful at) removing the three new judgeships he mistakenly created as full county-wide elected posts, saying at the time that the "state can't afford these three new judges." Of course, once he fixed the legislation and got his subcircuits, the funding issue mysteriously disappeared.

As usual, Terry Link is more concerned about playing politics than serving the voters of Lake County and promoting good representation on the bench. Time for him to go, and please vote for Keith Gray.

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