Cooper's veto: Governor was right to veto judge election bill

Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed legislation last week that would have made the elections of local judicial races partisan again.

We don't agree with Cooper on a lot of things, but we think he was right to exercise his veto power in this case.

Whether the veto will stand up or not is another question, but Cooper did the right thing in trying to halt the charge to make judicial races Democrat vs. Republican again. Lawmakers voted several years ago to make the races non-partisan, essentially taking the political angle out of the contests. Judges would be elected based on their experience and legal qualifications, not their party affiliation.

But some lawmakers say the voters do not know enough about the candidates for judicial office to make informed decisions and that by having them affiliate with one party or the other it tells the voters something about the candidate.

We believe judicial races are, by their nature, necessarily ultimately about more than political ideals. They are about which candidate knows the law best and who would best apply it to the facts before them. That has nothing to do with politics, and the two should not be mixed.

Published in Editorials on March 18, 2017 11:10 PM