top o' the judgeship to you
in doing research for an article about judicial elections i found out something interesting - judges in cook county, IL are something like two billion percent more likely to be elected if they're female and/or have a distinctly-irish sounding name. some wannabe judges even change their names to sound more irish.
i love this bit from an old chicago reporter article:
In the 2002 Democratic primary for Judge Thomas R. Rakowski's appellate court vacancy, James Fitzgerald Smith beat William D. O'Neal, Thomas H. Fegan and Roger G. Fein...Smith received seven "not recommended" or "not qualified" marks among his evaluations from 12 Chicago-area bar associations. O'Neal received eight unfavorable marks. But Fein, who was slated by the Democratic Party, received one unfavorable rating and Fegan, who is Irish, got approving marks from every bar group.
Slated judicial candidates are supported by a committee of party leaders. Beating them is not an easy task, according to a Chicago Council of Lawyers' unpublished analysis of judicial candidates from 1988 to 2000, which shows slated candidates won elections for vacant judgeships 72 percent of the time.
In addition, Smith was reported by the Chicago Sun-Times to have run for judge in 1992 as "James G. Smith" but then ran as "James Fitzgerald Smith" in 1994, when he was elected to the bench in a subcircuit race. Smith did not return repeated phone calls from the Reporter.
...In 1998, Bonnie Carol McGrath ran as a Republican candidate for a Cook County circuit court judgeship. Under the advice of her election lawyer, former Chicago Board of Election Commissioners Chairman Michael E. LaVelle, McGrath dropped "Carol" and replaced it with "Fitzgerald" even though it was neither part of her name nor that of anyone in her immediate family, she said.
She won the primary but lost in the general election to James Patrick McCarthy.
just in case you ever wanna be a judge in cook county.
i also find the fact that women have an easier time of being elected to judgeships interesting. tommy guessed it might be because people perceive them as fairer and more even-handed. what do you think?
Comments
You know who else tried the name-change trick? Frederick, late of unfogged commenting notoriety.
Whatever happened to him, anyway?
dunno - maybe you all already read this but ogged sent me this sun times article on him.
Wait, that article is about the Frederick in question? Wow. That's bizarre.
Here's one who didn't have to change her name and deserves to win: Siobhan Maura Murphy. All the name changing stuff prompted her to write this:
My father named me Siobhán at the recommendation of an older Irish friend and because he found my name listed as an 'illegal name' in a book in the University of Madison library. The book was put out for tax collectors, with the instruction that any Siobhán should summarily be re-named Joan.
I've never seen the book, but the story rings true. In the 14th Century, the English passed statutes forbidding Normans and English in Ireland from intermarrying with the Irish, from adopting the Irish language, using Irish names, and even playing Irish games. Later laws barred intermarriage between Protestants and Catholics, barred Irish Catholics from owning weapons, joining the army and navy, and practicing law. Irish Catholics were not permitted to vote, hold office under the Crown, purchase land, or attend or keep schools. Catholicism itself was forbidden, with Mass said in secret, and priest-holes (hiding places for priests) becoming a part of the culture. If a man sent his children to Catholic schools or universities abroad, he forfeited his civil liberties and all his lands and estates. Similar laws were passed to repress Judaism and non-Anglican Protestant religions. The same injustices, sometimes with different targets, continued in the early American colonies and the United States. Penal Laws, Indian Codes, Jim Crow laws, all serve the same ultimate end: oppression through law.
My name is a gift from my father on behalf of our Irish Catholic ancestors, who were forbidden their names, their religion, education, legal careers, and public office. So here I stand, of the same name and religion, having studied abroad and at home, an attorney standing for public office. My name is a reminder that we have a moral obligation to treat each other as neighbors and to oppose the drawing of lines that would divide us based on race, color or creed.
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