NC Appeals Court Judge Wanda Bryant was in New Bern a few days ago campaigning for re-election and saying that her judicial career was in the hands of ?uninformed voters.?
I don?t disagree with her about the lack of information many voters exhibit on statewide judicial races, but I also don?t remember her taking issue with the General Assembly?s decision last year to strip away the only real information voters had to go one when picking candidates for the appellate courts: party labels. Obviously, Democratic legislators wanted to halt the trend towards a Republican judiciary by creating ?non-partisan? elections in which few voters will participate and liberal interest groups will play a disproportionate role in promoting favored candidates.
I?d respect Bryant, a Democrat, if she would either call for the elimination of judicial elections altogether or call for the reinstatement of party labels so that millions of North Carolina voters will have at least one substantive piece of information with which to make a decision, rather than relying on simple name recognition or giving up entirely ? which will magnify the power of the voters cast by attorneys and activists.
