Judicial Endorsements

Tonight, Republican committee-people in Montgomery County will gather together to endorse their candidates for election to the Court of Common Pleas. This awesome responsibility is why your constituents vote for us as committee people......to endorse those candidates who they will see on the ballot in the fall.

Why?

Most people are busy. They rely on other people to research and fact find, to make their lives easier. This goes on throughout or lives.

As committee members, we are elected to suggest to our voters who to vote for. To help us along, we trust our municipal chairs and area leaders to guide us.

Which brings me to a point...a few weeks ago, our area leaders and executive committee met to recommend seven candidates for the Montgomery County bench. Those candidates went through an endorsement of sorts, so that our area leaders could recommend the best possible slate to us.

Some of my friends did not get recommended. I was hopeful, but it wasn't to be. Others, whom I was either not supporting or didn't know well were not chosen. Of the slate recommended, only one was someone I wasn't formerly acquainted with. Since then, I have met and spoken with this person and find them more than qualified to sit on the bench of the court of common pleas.

There will be a few candidates tonight who want you to disregard the recommended slate and pick them as candidates for the bench. Some of them are claiming that because the Bar Association gave them a certain rating and others a lesser (but equally impressive) one, they should be picked over the Executive Committee slate.

The Bar Association is made up of lawyers who may or may not be politically active. They couldn't give a fig if the recommended candidates were democrat or Republicans or martians.

We want good, solid Republican candidates on the bench just as the Democrats want good, solid Democrats on the bench. They aren't endorsing any Republicans and we're not endorsing any Democrats. That's not our job.

Let's face facts...the Bar Association wants judges on the bench who they think will look out for their interests, as attorneys. They don't care about what we think. They want the deck stacked in their favor. As do we.

Every one of the attorneys recommended by our exec committee have been recommended by the bar, and some highly recommended. They all deserve to be judges, but unfortunately, that honor can only fall to but 7 candidates this year.

Seventeen good people started this quest last year. Seven were recommended by our exec committee. Of the ten who were not, five have dropped out to unify our ticket. Of those left, (in my opinion) a couple have no chance of surviving the first round.

One of the candidates still running (not recommended) wants you to consider two things...one, that the Bar Association thinks so highly of him, three other Republicans and two democrats (all who were "Highly Recommended") that they are more qualified than the slate to be judges. He also wants you to know that one vote separated him from the person chosen over him. (Actually, there were two votes separating him from the candidate ultimately chosen.)

Also, he states that in order to have a "Highly Recommended" rating from the bar association, you must have 80% of those making the decision to have voted for that rating...not 79%, not 78%, but 80%. One or two of the candidates who did not receive "Highly Recommended" status may just have gotten 79% of the votes. One vote.

Does one vote matter? Sure it does. Receive one less vote than your opponent and you lose. Receive one more vote and you win. One would expect an unsuccessful (but graceful) candidate to rally behind the ticket and support the slate. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

In the past couple of years, people have been complaining to me that we need to unify as a party if we want to win elections. I agree. Unity makes for good leadership...one has only to look back on the previous MCRC leadership to prove that point. Chairman Kerns has been working hard to unify our county Republican Committee. I admire him greatly for that.

Which is why, for unity's sake, I choose to support the recommended slate, and ask those of you who will be voting tonight to do the same. It's time to show our opposition that great people get behind great leaders and choose great candidates. We must, in order to put up a strong fight in November.

For those of you to whom this awesome responsibility falls, I'll see you tonight.

B.