Partisan politics: Legislature votes to make local judge races partisan

The Republican-controlled Legislature has approved a bill that makes all judicial races partisan.

The measure comes only a few years after the General Assembly, under different leadership, made the races for district court and superior court nonpartisan.

The thinking at the time was to take the politics out of those contests.

We expect Gov. Roy Cooper, who was a lawmaker when the races were made nonpartisan, to veto the measure. He has indicated he will do so.

But the Legislature might well have the votes to override his veto.

If so, judicial candidates will have to align themselves with one party or another, and with the Republicans in ascendancy, you can expect to see most judicial hopefuls putting a GOP bumper sticker on their vehicle.

We have said before that we don't like the idea of making the races partisan, and we still don't. A vote for a judge should be based on the candidate's qualifications for the job --their knowledge of the law -- not on whether he or she wears a particular party's stickpin in their lapel.

Published in Editorials on March 10, 2017 9:25 AM