Soros sinks fangs into Michigan

by: Eric B.

Thu Feb 28, 2008 at 09:41:48 AM EST

Thanks to Rich for a hat tip to this in this morning's Coffee Talk.  We find out that the Michigan Campaign Finance Network actually hates democracy, and that lurking in the shadows of the campaign to reform judicial elections is the skulking figure of George Soros.

The problem for Justice at Stake and the MCFN is that when judicial elections are free and fair, their preferred candidates usually end up losing. It's not campaign finance law these groups have a quarrel with - it's democracy.

As Rich noted below, the author of this editorial is himself a lobbyist, which probably goes a long way to explaining the author's opposition to reforming the process -- right now, lobbyists can sink dollar after dollar into judicial campaigns, which has resulted in the kind of politicized rulings we're getting from the court and the declining public trust in the judicial system.  But, still, this must be defeated ... George Soros!

Lift the rock on Justice at Stake and you'll find hedge fund billionaire George Soros, who finances ultra-liberal activist groups like MoveOn.org.

It's hard to find any consistent principle in Soros' opposition to private campaign funding in judicial elections. Apparently, he believes that only his wealth should influence the composition of state judiciaries, and ordinary citizens should just stay out of it.

It's hard to find consistent principle in Soros' opposition to private campaign funding in judicial elections because it doesn't seem to be something Soros ever talks about.  Thus, although you can assume that Dan Pero was trying to show the good readers of Lansing that he possesses a dry, cool wit, it is far from apparent that George Soros believes that only his wealth should influence the composition of state judiciaries.

What we're left with is really nothing more than a standard wingnut ad hominem attack on an idea by assailing a person or persons.  George Soros, to wingnuts, is code words of "evil personified," which means simply mentioning his name in connection to an idea is enough to warrant full blood oath-level opposition to it.  And, the feeling that you're left with is that Soros, Dark Lord of the Left, is actually at the controls, pullng the levers, pushing the buttons, and steering the wheel.

Well, when you lift the rock at Justice at Stake, you find a bunch of others involved, however.  Naturally, they're hidden, on a page called "Campaign Partners."  They include such politically charged organizations as the American Bar Association and various Leagues of Women Voters, those stinking pinkos (this is kind of thing that happens when you enshrine universal suffrage in the Constitution).

But, of course, we probably don't want to take the opinion of the legal profession too seriously ... you can't swing a dead cat in a room full of attorneys without hitting a "trial lawyer," and public funding of judicial races is the first step towards stocking the state Supreme Court strictly with partners from the law offices of Sam Bernstein.  I mean, only a reprobate represents people injured by medical malpractice.

Meanwhile, I see that the Free Press managed to dig up an attorney to offer insights into the selection of judges.

In November, Clifford Taylor, a Republican and the current chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, will be up for re-election against an as-yet unnamed Democrat. The contest promises to be expensive and bitter, only adding to the growing feeling among Michigan voters that our state judges are highly partisan and beholden to campaign contributors.

Spoken like a true trial attorney on the take from Soros of Mordor.  What would the alternative be?  Well, if you're Abe Simpson, you're not happy.

While we may not be able to change the tenor of this November's election, we can avoid continued erosion of the public trust in the system by adopting a nonpartisan judicial selection method like that used in Missouri, which combines merit selection of state judges with nonpartisan retention elections.

Our current system for selecting state Supreme Court justices is labeled nonpartisan by some, but it is not. Judicial candidates are nominated by political parties at party conventions and have party support in election contests.

It's worth noting that the current state of judicial election has attracted criticism from one George Will, who called the election of judges a bad, but understandable, idea. There's an even stronger column he wrote a few years back when he suggested that it was time to do away with the election of all judges and turn them all into appointed positions.  A quick, five-second Google search failed to turn it up, but my point is this ... obviously, George Will is George Soros with a bowtie.

There is something else here worth raising.  If we insist on keeping the same old judicial election procedure, and one certainly assumes that we won't get meaningful reform on this any time soon, then we should at least remove from the ballot the notation that someone is already a current justice.  This provides an undue advantage to the incumbent for obvious reasons.  Not only does it provide an unwarranted advantage to the incumbent, but -- if memory serves me right -- judicial elections are the only elected positions in Michigan where incumbency is noted right there on the ballot.