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www.mybaycity.com August 1, 2010
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Governor Has Given Bay County Voters a Dilemma for District Judge

Jennifer Barnes vs. Four Men is a Scenario Fraught with Complications

August 1, 2010       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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Gov. Jennifer Granholm has left Bay County voters a dilemma in Tuesday's state primary election.

In our view, the wisest course for the governor would have been to allow the seat of Judge Scott Newcombe to remain vacant for the months of June and July and let the candidates slug it out on Aug. 3.

Instead, Granholm made a hasty appointment of Jennifer Cass Barnes, an appointment with overtones of politics beyond the county's borders.

Just the fact of pitting the genders is unworthy of a governor, or any other public official, especially in these days where fairness and diversity are paramount goals.

This case is neither fair to the women nor to the men. And the voters are left scratching their heads about what to do.

This process of the governor's did a disservice to Ms. Barnes, the other four candidates who seek the office and to the voters of Bay County.

Barnes has made a strong case that she is a competent judge who earnestly seeks to do the public's tough jobs.

But the quick appointment, apparently calculated by political handlers to give Barnes an advantage with the "district judge" incumbency designation printed under her name on the ballot, has raised charges of a "political fix" by fellow lawyers and the news media.

Throughout the campaign Barnes has had to drag the 10,000 pound anchor of the early, hasty and apparently not well vetted appointment by the governor.

Some voters, we have heard, are opposed to Ms. Barnes mainly for the appointment process and are not even considering her qualifications, which are considerable. That shows the flaws in the governor's process.

And the fact that one woman is pitted against four men for the coveted $120,000 a year job is just as unfair to her as an incumbent as it is to the challengers who have only their names on the ballot.

In a recent forum, Stevens Jacobs charged that the same interview process that characterized the appointment of Judge Dawn Klida a few months earlier was not followed in the case of Barnes. She did not dispute those allegations.

The Bay City Times recommended in an editorial, right after the appointment, that Barnes resign and let the chips fall where they may, but by then it was too late.

Win or lose, Barnes' candidacy will be forever tainted by the hasty appointment that will, by the very fact that it occurred, turn off some voters she might otherwise have convinced to join her camp.

The public will not be blind to the fact that Granholm had already appointed a female judge, Dawn Klida, to the same bench, and that we have a highly respected female probate judge in Karen Tighe who has held office for many years.

But even if every judge on the bench in Bay County was a woman, it would not be unfair, if all were elected fairly -- if all were the best choice for the job.

However, the process has been tainted and we are left to sort out the candidates, suppress our gender-driven motivations, and be as fair as we can despite the circumstances.

For many people, achieving fairness in the selection of a judge will be difficult, if not impossible.

So, good luck to all the candidates, and to all the voters. In November we will have another choice to make between the two candidates who finish in the top two spots Tuesday. Then, we will have six years to evaluate the performance on the bench of the winner.###

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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

More from Dave Rogers

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