Author: Jerry Skurnik

Now the Democrats have selected Denver as the host city for the 2008 National Convention, we will soon see pundits writing how this will make Colorado and neighboring states more likely to vote Democratic for President. Previously others have written that the Republicans having their convention in Minneapolis will help them win in Minnesota & Wisconsin. For example – "The Midwest has become strategic ground," said David Schultz, who teaches politics at Hamline University in St. Paul. "Bring the convention here, get the faithful excited, and spotlight that you care about the Midwest and farmers." Schultz said it's also a "symbolic black eye" to Minnesota Democrats trying to keep alive the spirit of Hubert Humphrey and Paul Wellstone. "It's a purple state now, and Republicans increasingly view this as a winnable state," he said.

I have written before about the possibility that candidates for New York Supreme Court Justice will be selected in contested Primaries. I think it’s now time to look at what such Primaries might look like in New York City in 2007.

This assumes that the U.S. Supreme Court does not agree to hear the appeal from those who support keeping Judicial Conventions and that no alternative to some sort of Primary system are agreed to by the State Legislature and Governor.

The strong rumor is that the Democrats in the State Assembly are in favor of a system of Judicial Conventions and Primaries like the present way candidates for statewide office are picked. Each Party would have a convention in May or early June. Candidates for Supreme Court who receive 50%+1 of the vote of the delegates would automatically be placed on the ballot as the Party’s endorsed choice. Candidates who received 25% could also run and candidates who did not receive 25% or more could then petition to get on the ballot.

Last Thursday, the State Board of Elections official certified this year’s General Election Results and both they and the City BOE have made detailed results available. I’ve reviewed the results to see what was interesting and/or surprising and have found not much – at least among the major Parties.

No parsing of the numbers makes a Democratic landslide look like anything else. Among the statewide candidates, the four Democrats each carried every Assembly District except one. The 62nd AD, on Staten Island was won by Jeanine Pirro (57%), John Spencer (51%) and Christopher Callaghan (50%).

Has King Karl Lost His Magic Touch?

It's an ugly rumor, but it's spreading like wildfire: Karl Rove has lost his touch. In an amazing betrayal within a family where top political aide Rove is royalty, Bushies have been sneering at his pre-election happy talk that the gop would keep the Senate and take a slight hit in the House, both soon to be run by Democrats. And now we learn that President Bush really believed the GOP was safe, too. On the day before the elections, he asked embattled House gop leader Dennis Hastert to run for speaker again so he could guide the White House's agenda in Congress.

Another argument made in support of continuing Judicial Conventions and not having Primaries choose candidates for State Supreme Court Justice has to do with diversity on the bench. Just a few days ago, a Democratic Party activist told me he believed that if Primaries picked them, there would never be another Black or Hispanic Supreme Court Justice elected in Manhattan.

To try to determine how true that is, I decided to look at Countywide Primaries for judgeships in the last 10 years since the Supreme Court Districts in New York City are the same as the 5 counties (except that Brooklyn and Staten Island are a combined district for Supreme Court).

One of the loudest arguments in favor of continuing Judicial Conventions and not having Primaries choose candidates for State Supreme Court Justice has to do with money. At Wednesday’s hearing before the State Assembly Judiciary Committee, witnesses and Assembly members warned that Primaries would mean that judgeships would go to the highest bidder and that big money would corrupt the justice system. Million dollar campaigns have been predicted.

But is that a legitimate fear?

Since other elected judges are selected through Primaries, shouldn’t we look at what candidates for these positions spend on campaigns?

Over the years I have consulted for numerous candidates for judge. Because of this, I take a particular interest in the never-ending debate on judicial selection in New York.

I’m basically agnostic on the question of which system produces the best judges but I do have one strong belief – no system is perfect!

Appointments, elections, merit selections, panels, etc. – all of them will produce great judges, good judges, mediocre judges, bad judges and crooks.

But most others are not agnostic. They are advocates for one system and can only see the bad results of the systems they oppose and are blind to how their preferred schemes actually work.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my view that there’s too much praise for people in winning campaigns and too much criticism for those who lost.

I ended the post by writing “I would like nothing better than to see the Democrats win the Senate and House and then to read a Robert Novak column calling for Bush to fire Rove.”

Well Novak hasn’t done it yet but Deborah Oren in the New York Post has come close, here.

It’s time to start thinking about who will vote in the first New York City election of 2007. There will be two Special Elections for City Council in February. One in the 40th Council District in Brooklyn will pick the replacement for Yvette Clarke who is going to Congress. The other is the 51st and will select the successor to Andrew Lanza who is becoming a State Senator.

These elections are non-partisan with nobody running on the Democratic, Republican, Independence, Conservative or Working Families lines. There is no runoff, so candidates have won with less than a majority. Turnout in these elections are usually small, ranging from 5% to 15% depending on how serious contested the race is.

While there was some talk in the media about the election of the first Muslim to Congress – Keith Ellison of Minnesota, nobody has talked about the aspect of religion and the new Congress in the way we New Yorkers are interested.

That is – how many additional Jews were elected?

I have the answer.

According to Congressional Quarterly, the new Congress will have 6 new Jewish Representatives and 2 new Jewish Senators.

The new Congressmembers, all Democrats are;

Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona

John Yarmuth, Kentucky

Ron Klein, Florida

Paul Hodes, New Hampshire,