READERS WRITE: Rhetoric aside, state constitution must prevail

Jay Bookman’s column on the Georgia secretary of state’s role in determining if a candidate meets residency requirements (“Voters, not secretary of state, should decide PSC election,” Aug. 28) raises the bar for illogical and absurd analysis. Amazingly, Bookman suggests that I should have manipulated the law and taken the easy way out by putting Jim Powell on the ballot for the Public Service Commission.

Most troubling is that Bookman literally advocates that I, as a constitutional officer, interpret and apply the law based on some policy or political goal rather than what the law actually says.

I have to wonder what Bookman and the AJC’s editorial pages would say if I was “bending” the law the other way so that the choice was to include a candidate he doesn’t like.

As secretary of state, I have the constitutional responsibility to oversee Georgia’s state and federal elections. This includes ensuring that only legally qualified candidates appear on the ballot. According to the law and long-established precedents, Powell is not a resident of the district in which he qualified to run and therefore cannot appear on the ballot in November.

I swore to uphold and protect the Georgia Constitution and our state’s laws, irrespective of the whims and fancies of those who seek to disrupt and manipulate our elections through litigation, misguided editorials and rhetoric. That’s what I have done in the Powell case, and that’s what I am going to continue to do.

KAREN C. HANDEL

Handel is Georgia’s secretary of state.

Juries need serious overhauling

The quote from Superior Court Judge James Bodiford directed at a recalcitrant juror —- “You think jury service is a civic duty for everybody but you?” —- made me laugh (“Prospective Nichols juror jailed for lying to the judge,” Metro, Aug. 23). The truth?

Everyone working in the courtroom, save the working press, is exempt from jury service. As a self-employed person called to jury service, I have sat in many courthouses fuming that the judge, lawyers, bailiffs —- all the civil servants —- were making their living while I was losing mine. Jury members are the unpaid lackeys of the justice system.

We are long past the time for trained, professional jurors to make these crucial decisions for our society. To expect bored, angry, capricious, ignorant citizens to exact justice from overwhelming presentations of tedious information is beyond the pale of human experience. As more convicts are exculpated by DNA evidence, the failings of our current jury system are glaringly evident. Justice delayed is justice denied, but justice dealt by jury may be no justice at all.

BILL McNEW

Fayetteville

Biden the anti-Cheney

Regarding Jim Wooten’s blog question (“Does the VP matter?” Thinking Right, Aug. 25): Vice presidents do matter. Former vice presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney played significant roles during their tenures.

In tapping Sen. Joseph Biden, Sen. Barack Obama chose the best-qualified person. Perhaps Sen. Hillary Clinton might have helped more in the fall campaign, but in selecting Biden, Obama clearly focuses on creating a productive post-election environment.

Biden may turn out to be the perfect antidote to the current vice president. Unlike Cheney, who has spent seven years working from the shadows undermining relations with overseas partners, Biden would bring both stronger international experience and an open, less partisan approach to governing that could help repair the damage done by the Bush administration.

ERICK DITTUS

Kennesaw