Traditionally, judicial candidates have refrained from any type of issue discussion because the judicial canons of ethics prohibit any promise to rule a certain way, or to give the appearance of bias. However, a recent opinion, not from the Supreme Court, but the JEAC (Judicial Ethics Advisory Council) has opened the door to limited discussion.
http://www.jud6.org/LegalPractice/opinions/judicialethicsadvisoryopinions/2006/2006-18.html
Now I'm expected to comment intelligently but in sound bites, on matters ranging from abortion to homosexual marriage to gun rights. What no one seems particularly interested in is that County Court is almost completely involved in statutory issues, statutes which fall within the clear discretion of the legislature, and the judge's sole obligation is to apply the facts to the law.
On the other hand, it's nice to be asked my opinion, even though the questioners invariably have a vested interest in the answer.
We've had two forums in the past two days, one at Westminster Oaks, and another at the Miccosukee Community Center. The one at Westminster Oaks was well attended, there were probably 150 people there, but there were 12 candidates, so it was long. They were relatively generous with the amount of time they gave us to speak, 7 minutes, but I still didn't have time to cover everything I wanted to with that well educated and experienced crowd.
The one at the Miccosukee Community Center was extremely well organized, and had about 50 people from the rural community attending. Their questions were predominently for the County Commission Candidates, so I left around 8:45 pm.
This morning I had an interview with the Capital Outlook, which I must confess I enjoyed more than the Tallahassee Democrat's interview, which was much more like a forum for 7 people than an editorial board review.
2 comments:
Hello Lisa,
Got your flyer in the mail. There are 3 registed voters in our house and we always vote, but normally not in areas like judges, mayor, etc, because we don't know enough about the candidates to make a rational decision, but your flyer caught my eye and I went to your website and did a little looking around. Like you I am also a woman who is a wartime veteran (retired Air Force) and I belive with your varied background you would make a really good judge. Good luck on September 5th
Thanks so much for your kind words. I want you to know that my webmaster, Ted Hsu, worked really hard on the web site because we wanted people to be able to find out a lot of information about me if they were interested. I'm so glad you read the site, and left a comment on the blog.
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