Litigation

Judicial Ballot Blank, MN Reform Efforts Revived

By Peter Hardin

A surprising scenario has left a Minnesota judicial ballot blank and brought new life to calls for reforming elections for judges.

Thomas Armstrong, a district court judge in Washington County, filed on time to run for reelection. Shortly before a deadline for candidates to file, his longtime law clerk, Dawn Hennessy, filed for election too. A day later, the 63-year-old Judge Armstrong withdrew his candidacy. After questions were raised publicly about the sequence of events, Hennessy withdrew, leaving the ballot blank, according to a Minnesota Public Radio report.

Hennessy said she hadn’t meant to circumvent the normal election process. “I don’t want people to think this was tainted or dishonest or any collusion occurred and now that some believed this, then my honest intentions of filing for the job no longer mattered, so I went and withdrew as a candidate,” a Minneapolis Star Tribune article quoted her as saying.

What happens next? A write-in election could lie ahead. Election officials also said they were looking at a state law permitting petitioning by candidates to get onto a blank ballot.

The episode is helping breathe new life into efforts for judicial reform that failed earlier this year, according to the Star Tribune.

A proposed ballot question was derailed in the legislature. The  question was sought on a proposed constitutional amendment to  replace contested elections to decide on a sitting judge?s future with up-or-down retention elections (see Gavel Grab).

“I don’t know if there’s a problem with the legal ethics, but it doesn’t instill public confidence in the judiciary,” said Karen Cole, a St. Paul lawyer, about the events that left a blank judicial ballot. “And public confidence is the only source of legitimacy for the courts. People are disappointed with this kind of maneuver.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 07, 2010 (boomark / email).