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Monday, October 27, 2008
McGuire best pick for Court of Appeals
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two suspected conservatives are among the seven running for the Georgia Court of Appeals.
It is possible that there are others. But with the interpretation many judicial candidates have chosen to apply a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that gives them more freedom in campaign speech than the old school wants, voters will not know before casting ballots on Nov. 4.
One can say with some certainty that Perry McGuire “holds rule-of-law, strict constructionist judicial views” and, furthermore, “believes that judges should interpret the law, not create them from the bench.” One can say that with some certainty because he says it of himself.
While the Georgia Court of Appeals does not address constitutional disputes — that’s the purview of the state Supreme Court — it is important to salt the judicial mines with those who express McGuire’s view.
The other suspected conservative in the race is Mike Sheffield, a Gwinnett County lawyer who had a heartbreak loss for the Court of Appeals in 2004 when he first made the runoff by 382 votes before a challenge to the results forced a rerun. He lost.
Whether he is or not, Sheffield is amply experienced with about 300 jury trials and 65 appeals as a prosecutor, public defender and private-practice lawyer.
If you’re just looking for somebody who can do the job, throw a dart. They’re all capable. Vote for long names, vote for short names. Vote the alphabet. Each of them has something to offer.
McGuire, a former Republican state senator from Carrollton, also served as a corporate counsel for Chick-fil-A before becoming a partner in a business and corporate law firm in Cobb County. While trial lawyers tend to support Democrats and therefore find reason to oppose McGuire, for other Georgians having a strict constructionist with expertise in business law on the Court of Appeals would be useful. Most incumbents have trial-related backgrounds, either as judges or as prosecutors.
McGuire, it’s worth noting, has been endorsed by an assortment of legislative leaders who are themselves conservative, including Congressman Lynn Westmoreland of Grantville, Georgia Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson of Savannah, and a number of others.
Candidates clearly are allowed to state their personal views on disputed public policy issues, obviously without making promises or implying commitment to rule one way or another on issues to come before the court. Most judicial candidates either declare or imply that they are ethically bound to silence on such issues, an interpretation of the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White that is at odds with the majority opinion. Elections are required under the state constitution and, as such, voters should be given responses beyond those lawyers and judges think proper. In Minnesota before the Supreme Court decision, voters were only allowed to ask approved questions. Candidates could offer opinions on cameras in the courtroom, how to reduce caseloads, what they thought about administrative costs, and how women and minorities could be treated more fairly.
The Minnesota decision caused many lawyers and judges great angst. In Georgia, a self-selected group composed mostly of lawyers formed a group calling itself the Georgia Committee for Ethical Judicial Campaign and invited candidates to take a pledge that they would not make misleading statements in judicial campaigns. It’s a pledge I wouldn’t sign on a dare, not because I’d be inclined to misleading utterances but because liberals and conservatives tend to see the world differently. Self-styled groups have biases that aren’t evident. What a group of conservatives and what a group of liberals think is misleading are often entirely different.
No candidate for judicial office should ever surrender to an unelected and non-official group the right to declare which speech is acceptable and which is not in an election. Most of the seven candidates in this race have unwisely signed the pledge giving outsiders authority over their campaigns. The two suspected conservatives haven’t.
McGuire has said, as have others, that he’ll rule strictly on the law as written and not on the basis of personal beliefs or on the outcome he might have advocated as a legislator. A judge on the Court of Appeals “must be impartial and fair, but most importantly must honor the law as written,” he said. “We play the role of an umpire, applying the rules, not making them.”
The seven running for the open seat on the Court of Appeals are all qualified. It’s hard for voters to distinguish one from another. A runoff is certain. Perry McGuire should be one of those left standing.
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What can John McCain do?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama enters the final week of the presidential campaign with supporters and the media propelling the inevitability of his coronation a week from Tuesday.
What can John McCain do? He has six work days and a weekend to convince the nation that the election is not a referendum on the economy now or the Bush Administration as it was. It is instead about where the two candidates will take this country.
With a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and full control of the House — both a possibility, according to pollsters — the spending agenda Obama has spelled out in the campaign will pass unchecked. Between the election and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in 2010 — or earlier, if Democrats choose — wealth in this country will take flight to safer havens, into financing government debt, for example. And jobs won’t be far behind. Giving organized labor the legislation it wants to mandate wages and to make unionization of the workplace easier by essentially eliminating the secret ballot will give employers incentive to move jobs overseas. Attempting to impose U.S. environmental and labor law on other countries will stop any movement toward the elimination of trade barriers in its tracks.
For those who see their wealth as coming from somebody else’s taxes, it won’t matter as much as it does to those who pay the tab. But there is an economic consequence still, as the higher cost of new taxes, regulation and mandates get built into the price of goods and services.
John McCain has one week remaining to convince working Americans that the taxing and spending promises of an unchecked Obama presidency could turn the subprime financial crisis into something far worse and more lasting.
For conservatives put out with John McCain because of his propensity to wander, it’s time to come home. However far afield you think McCain may wander from core conservative believes, the alternative is far worse. It’s not the time to be purists.
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