The Candidate

Tonight my roommate Brian is hosting a fundraising cocktail party for a woman who's running for Circuit Judge. He and a few friends decided to raise money this year for three targeted candidates, in hopes of "improving the quality of our local judiciary." In other words, they want to help some folks get to the Bench so that they'll be on their good sides when appearing before them.

This is the reality of Florida judicial politics. In some states, judges are appointed, and that leads to charges that the judges are aloof, and not sensitive to their communities. The theory here is that, if judges are subject to popular election, they'll be more attuned to their local folks.

In practice, the only ones who truly care about the judges are the lawyers, so we get to control, effectively, who gets in and who doesn't. And, who gets in depends on 2 factors: money raised for campaigns, and ethnicity.

Actually, the second factor isn't always true. Although conventional wisdom is that a Hispanic always trumps an Anglo in Dade, over the past several elections candidates with names like Murphy and Ginsberg have actually beaten some Hernandezes and Gonzolezes.

The lady coming to my office tonight seems to be a suitable candidate. She's a local Cuban woman, who went to the U, and then moved to NY for law school. Between the close friends she made in Coral Gables and those on Long Island, she converted from Catholicism to Judaism, and then married an Orthodox guy she met in law school.

She came here and became a prosecutor, and now, since her husband makes enough to pay for their kids private school, and their big house on Miami Beach, she wants to "serve the country that was so great to her immigrant family."

I met her for coffee last week. She's very chatty and earnest. In other words, probably insufferable over long periods of time. Wifey would like her.

Brian bought some premium booze for the event tonight, and I'll drink my fill, I figure. Hopefully this lady will win, with the made for Dade County hyphenated last name. (My fellow wise ass friend Jorge keeps calling her "Sally Gomez Fendelman" which isn't really her name, but it's close).

Ah, this Law business is getting tiresome, on so many levels...