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| Abrams |
A response letter written by St. Mary’s Circuit Court Judge Karen Abrams four months ago, at the request of a Maryland House committee chairman, has suddenly popped up on the desks of the local print newspapers and some candidates for Circuit Court Judge.
As a result, allegations have been flying this week, some claiming that sitting judges are teaming up to blockade independent voters by secretly petitioning the Legislature, and others are saying the public letter simply shows a lack of respect for Independent voters.
Maryland House Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Vallario requested in March that Judge Abrams send him a paper copy of her response to a mass email from the top Administrative Judge of the 7th Circuit.
The email solicited comments from the sitting judges of Southern Maryland on a bill that sought to change the primary election procedure of electing judges. Currently all circuit judge candidates are listed on both the Democrat and Republican primary ballots, and the winner from each ballot faces off in the general election. If one candidate wins both ballots, they win the office without a general election race.
The bill that Abram commented on sought to create a new non-partisan ballot to be used in the primary election, and the top two vote-getters on this new non-party ballot would face off in the general election.
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| Stamm |
Currently independents and voters in other parties cannot vote in the primary race for judges unless they register as Democrat or Republican, so the rules in place prevent third-party voters from casting votes if the election is decided in the primary.
The issue at hand is the fact that elections for judges are conducted on the primary ballots for Democrats and Republicans, in contrast to the law that states judge elections need to be non-party-affiliated.
There have been dozens of attempts to change the method of putting judges on the bench in recent decades, ranging from the bill referenced in Abrams’ letter to completely eliminating elections of judges.
Abram and other sitting judges rejected this recent attempted solution to the election problem because, she claims, it creates two contests to be won, and extra months of campaigning – and because the proposed changes would take place in the middle of the current campaign, which candidates have already joined.
“The court of appeals has ruled that the judicial election, although called non-partisan, is in fact, partisan in its structure,” Abrams wrote. “If the goal is to re-establish the nonpartisan nature of judicial elections, then perhaps the primary itself should be eliminated.”
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