A last minute plea from the mayor...In what can only be described as yet another weird turn this election season....Mayor Josh Cohen has sent out an email blast urging us to vote for the sitting Judges Jarashow and Kiessling...and the funny thing is that Cohen, a highly-partisan Democrat is supporting the two sitting judges, both Democrats and both appointed by a Democrat and claiming that their opponent, Alison Asti, is a partisan Republican.
Cohen writes, "Their challenger is playing partisan politics by courting support almost exclusively from one party, even dropping off yard signs at the statewide Party headquarters."
Now, I have written about this race, and for the most part, I fully agree with the mayor about the disturbing partisanship in this race, but who the !$@%! is he to inject politics (and as a partisan Democrat no less ) to tell me who I should vote for--and partially because Asti is indeed running a partisan race?
As I said, it's just weird..... Could you imagine Cohen ever endorsing a Republican or suggesting that a Republican could be more qualified than a Democrat? Could you ever imagine Cohen speaking out if a Democrat were to engage in questionable activities? Hey, Mayor Cohen--be the mayor--and govern our city--and try, please just try to extricate yourself from politics for a change! Or is that like asking a leopard to change its spots?
Readers may recall my The Ninth Ward column in The Capital months ago questioning the manner in which we elect judges...and this email is yet another reason why it makes me very uncomfortable...can you imagine a case coming before the Circuit Court with the mayor and city as parties to a suit???? Let's see, Site Realty? Garcete Construction? Eastern Waterproofing? Maybe one day it could be "In the matter of Gone to Market LLC versus the Mayor, Alderman and City of Annapolis, Honorable Judge Alison Asti presiding (or, might it be Ron Jarashow or Laura Kiessling) All rise..."
Hmmm......as we know, candidates for legislative and executive offices are expected to be at least somewhat partisan, have biases and accordingly and so we elect them partially based on knowing that, but judges? We fully expect them to be unbiased, fair and objective yet they run campaigns and we elect them in the same way.....and that's the rub! (The Youtube video the mayor directs us to watch is already getting a lot of views....)
2 Comments:
The YouTube Video is also very highly partisan. Produced by the sitting judges and purposely edited out the responses Asti gave at that forum making her look silent. And the juxtaposition of the words under Asti is also partisan
Yes I agree and I am not linking to it...but already today there have been many dozens of visits to that youtube page..and by the way, did you hear the radio ad with the voice of the school board member plugging for Judd Legum??
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