Look past party affiliation when casting judicial vote Houston Chronicle
The Democratic and Republican primary voters have given us a slate of judicial candidates for criminal courts to choose from this November. I am a Democrat, yet I have never voted a straight ticket in judicial races despite my serious objections to the policies and practices of what has in recent years been largely a Republican judiciary in Harris County.
There are those who will presume that a judge who is elected as a Democrat will be better at managing budgets, supervising the probation department and assessing fair standards for bail in criminal cases. I remember that not too long ago, a bipartisan legislative coalition went on a prison building spree, Democratic as well as Republican judges filled them and a Democratic mayor and City Council waged a war on drugs that incapacitated thousands of mostly young black males. And that we still wait on reform efforts from the 2008 election of Democrats in county administrative and judicial offices.
