Voters Should Be Judge Of Judges
He received not one vote, but Paul Bastine has been elected a Superior Court judge for Spokane County.
He may well hold elective office for years and never face the voters.
That’s the way it typically goes with Superior Court judges: a vacancy on the bench, an appointment by the governor, maybe an opponent in the first election and maybe not, but usually free rides thereafter. State law spares them even the formality of appearing unchallenged on the ballot.
Spokane County residents needn’t fret. Bastine is an experienced lawyer with an exemplary record of public service. Lack of a challenger speaks to his peers’ high regard.
Peers such as Spokane attorney Linda Tompkins who, besides a successful law practice, has impressive public-service credentials of her own: 12 years on the Central Valley School Board, past president of the Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce, board of directors for Momentum and the Valley Center for Sharing, current vice president of the state Transportation Commission.
When Tompkins declined to seek another term on the CV School Board, she said she expects more Superior Court vacancies and she’s hopeful that Gov. Mike Lowry, who appointed Bastine to the court a month ago, and her to the Transportation Commission, would consider her favorably for the bench.
She did not plan to run against a sitting judge, she said.
Like Bastine, Tompkins is highly qualified. But elections are about choices, not affirmations.
This systemic aversion to judicial contests hasn’t damaged the Spokane County Superior Court’s enviable reputation. There’s just something unfulfilling about elections in which voters have no part.
And while the law is a technical field, judges aren’t robots. They exhibit human differences of opinion and philosophy. Different levels of interest in matters like creative sentencing and alternative dispute resolution. Even different approaches to how the law should be interpreted and applied.
The voters in whose name laws are both written and applied deserve a chance to weigh those differences against their own values.
Campaigns, admittedly, are costly in time, energy and money. And who wants to walk away from a lucrative law practice, one it took years to build, and risk having to start all over again if you are defeated?
If governors continue to pick able judges - making political allegiances secondary to legal ability and community service - the democratic system’s loss won’t be great. But that’s a large if.
Meanwhile, the state just revamped its code of judicial conduct, making it easier for judicial candidates to discuss campaign issues. That welcome change will be wasted until the bar does a better job of giving the public choices.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Floyd/For the editorial board