No, not that CIA, the other CIA.
This one was bizarre. How can people who grew up in this country have such a twisted idea of the judiciary’s role? The very idea of spending money to campaign for a judge based on the political effect of their rulings, rather than their legal soundness, is shocking within the American context. No matter how often they do it in Washington, thanks to Roe.
And neither BIPEC, nor the Palmetto Family Council, nor, apparently, CIA thought there was a thing wrong with it. Why else would CIA have posted this video?
How would they feel if the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and MoveOn.org campaigned against candidates for the S.C. Supreme Court (the way they campaign on the federal level, which is another appalling example of what Roe v. Wade has done to this country)?
You know what? As I asked that question just now, it hit me that they would might think it was just fine! All’s fair in love and war, and this is war!
Now, before all you conservatives unleash a bunch of tripe at me about defending the "liberal" candidate, I am not doing that. I’m defending the judiciary.
To the extent that I have an opinion on this, it is that Bruce Williams — the very one these "conservative" groups want — was the best candidate in this race. I didn’t consider it a tragedy if one of the others were elected, because all three were qualified. But it appeared to me that Williams was the most qualified. I didn’t study the matter the way I would have if I had been a lawmaker voting today, or if our editorial board had been endorsing, but from what I do know, I think I would have voted for him.
Why am I using the past tense? Because the election is over, and Don Beatty — the guy CIA was attacking with all that laughably lurid, over-the-top, nongrammatical rhetoric ("Ultra Liberal Democrat Partisan") — won. He will ascend to the Supreme Court, and probably become the next chief justice.
Now, think about this: Did the grotesquely inappropriate campaigning by these groups have a backlash effect? Did lawmakers choose the one with the lowest ratings (of the three) from the state Bar as a way of rejecting the guy with all the overeager friends? Possibly. I don’t think that would be appropriate either — lawmakers, with their inordinate power to choose the judiciary, have a solemn responsibility to pick the one they think best suited, not the one with the least objectionable friends — but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that a few of the votes he picked up were influenced by that.
It’s an interesting thing to consider, anyway.
Related Posts
Why is it whenever someone doesn’t like a decision a judge makes suddenly that judge is an “activist,” but when that same person agrees with a decision, that judge is a good jurist?
Exactly. These groups are ASKING for an activist, because they want someone who will enact, from the bench, political results that they desire.
This post was censored by Will Folks on his blog. It is presented here to get the news out. The Reprint follows. Email will and tell him censorship is unAmerican.
This string started off about judicial integrity, but I agree with the comment about Will’s integrity. Rather, his lack of.
Over and over and over he has shown a total lack of integrity in almost everything he does. From the scandals when he was with the governors office to his felony conviction.
Some of his most recent boondoggles include his fake story that some unnamed midlands elected official has a “Strom problem.” Boy, everybody jumped on that for a day.
It turned out to be untrue. Did Will check it out before he spread it all over several blogs including his own? No. He put it out as truth and promised details. Lier or fool? You judge.
Another of his foolish stunts is the recent FOI request he claims to have made for the governor’s laptop. Even if what he says is true there is no way he will ever get his hands on a single bit of data from that computer. And, he knows it.
The worst part of that stunt is his total lack of integrity and loyalty to his former boss. If there was something illegal or unethical about it why didn’t Will bring it up long ago?
Over the last week he has manufactured more gossip and rumors over the Supreme Court issue than The National Enquirer has made up in 20 years. All because he did not like the fact that the leading candidate is black – and to make things even worse – many Republicans voted for him!
So, Judge Beatty is elected. And the monsters under Will’s bed are still eating his dust bunnies. We can only wonder what new fictional crisis he will dream up next.
Whatever it is he will be sure to have plenty of anonymous emails and unnamed reliable sources to back him up.
This “election” was more about race than anything else. The state legislature was more concerned about eliminating the all lily-white bench than electing the most qualified applicant. It’s fairly obvious that the least qualified judge ended up with the seat and may end up as our Chief Justice. This should keep the heat from the Legislative Black Caucus (an internal special interest group) off the members of the “Legislative White Caucus” for a while. There are two more seats vacating in the next couple years, we already know who will fill those seats. This election was just the result of a deal-making to determine who got seated first.
Well, the legislators will retreat to their homes in a few days, not accomplishing much more this session than this monumental vote. They’ll leave with smiles on their faces and bruises on their backs from all of the “good job” backslapping that will be going on.
Brad:
I have written frequently on my blog about the need for the public election of Judges in South Carolina.
My purpose for these posts has been for one reason, that if 48 other states can elect their jurists (Virginia being the other that doesn’t I believe)why shouldn’t we?
We elect all of our other elected officials. My most recent post on this subject called for a lawsuit to be filed because I didn’t feel that our legislature would ever do anything to provide any type of change in the election of judges in South Carolina. I still don’t
What are your feelings about a referendum on either the primary or the general election ballot that will for once and for all tell our General Assembly whether or not they want to publically elect their judges?
Most pubs split their votes, allowing Mr. Beatty’s victory. All democratic votes went Beatty’s way, which tells you what?
But, knowing how the good ol’ boys can still mobilize when they want to, I imagine there’s a goodly amount of quid pro quo here.
For instance, look for a lot less anti-flag posturing or any talk of any meaningful reform of any kind over the next session.
It tells you they’re grateful.
My understanding is that Don Beatty, when he was in the House, engineered the reapportionment deal that put Republicans in the majority.
Basically, the Legislative Black Caucus did a deal with the GOP Caucus to force the gerrymandering of a few more majority-black districts. We all know what that does, don’t we? Speaker Bob Sheheen surely knew, which was why he gave the Black Caucus the cold shoulder on the issue, which is why they went to the GOP.
OK, for those of you born in the past week … when you round up black voters from various districts and crowd them into one district to make it artificially black, you make all those other districts very, very white.
We know how very, very white districts tend to vote in South Carolina, right? Hence a GOP majority.
Without gerrymandering, you get elected leaders who have to represent ALL the people in their natural communities — black, white and what have you. You get greater moderation, greater consideration to all voices on the part of each representative.
The Black and Republican caucuses didn’t want that. They wanted more seats. So that’s what they got — a few more black representatives, and a lot more Republicans.
So what’s the problem, Brad? Isn’t that your beloved representative government in action?
Yes it is, and that’s one of its flaws — the way race and its ramifications undermine it.
And there are numerous other flaws, yet you persist in your blind faith on making the government ever larger. Don’t you ever ask yourself why, with the many flaws even you acknowledge, we should give even another penny to that monstrosity?