Tuesday, September 03, 2024

Taking time off for good(?) behavior....

No, I'm not dead.

But I haven't posted here since May 30.

I have -- had -- any number of excuses: I had to get my CLE done. I had to prepare for, and successfully complete, an all-family vacation (the image above is from that trip). As the photograph suggests, I have had some babysitting and transportation obligations. I have been fortunate enough to be called a number of times for arbitration duty.

But these are mere excuses. I did all these things, and more, when I was also trying to keep a law practice going and I still had time to post here several times a week and, sometimes, several times a day.

I haven't been sick, physically -- my wife and I did have our first documented bout with Covid at the end of May, but that was merely unpleasant, not incapacitating.

No, if I've been sick, it's a sickness in my soul. I have covered judicial elections here in every election cycle since 2008. Arguably, this is a political site -- very, very, very low on the political scale -- but this work has given me more exposure to politics and politicians and their various machinations than I otherwise could ever have had.

And, I find, I don't like politics. I like it less with each increasingly shrill, bombastic, hyper-partisan election cycle.

Getting elected to the bench (or, for that matter, getting appointed) is a political process -- and politicians are members of a notoriously closed guild. I have tried to pull the curtain back a little, as much as an outsider like me can, in order to give lawyers who are not politicians, or related to politicians, but who nevertheless harbor judicial ambitions, more of a chance to breach the political battlements.

The breakthrough kitchen-table campaigns that I would posit as the ideal were never common; they are rarer than ever these days. In my time on this beat, I have documented the increasing expense of running a credible judicial campaign, from campaign consultants (of sometimes questionable loyalty, but always real expense) to the costs (actual and ethical) of raising funds. When I ran for judge, in 1994 and 1996, we tried to send out postcards to bring friends and acquaintances to the polls; now, direct mail pieces are probably a necessity. Hopefully not the misleading and malicious ones... but some examples of this type have been found in recent judicial campaigns, too.

But these trends, dispiriting as they are, are not a sufficient explanation for my malaise.

It's been coming on me now for some time. I tried to write about it in April, trying to explain why I thought the constant barrage of negative political advertising constitutes a form of bipartisan voter suppression.

But it's more than negative advertising. It's the groupthink. The win-at-all-costs mentality. It's the false choice fallacy that if you dare notice the obvious, glaring faults of this candidate, you must necessarily be a synchophantic, mindless supporter of that candidate.

What may frost me most is the casual, bipartisan contempt for the Constitution -- treating it like an obstacle to someone's vision of "progress" instead of as the safeguard of all our rights and liberties that it most certainly is.

You know, back in the day, before it was repealed, I had a lot of Structural Work Act cases. From these I learned that there is absolutely no question that safety harnesses, properly worn, can slow down the "progress" of the work. The builder's goals might be more promptly achieved without them. But, also without them, people are much more likely to get seriously hurt, even killed. Safeguards matter.

We lawyers -- we're sort of the Constitution's OSHA. We need to rein back our partisan, political brothers and sisters, not try and fashion creative arguments to provide cover for their excesses. And that goes for both parties. All parties. Left and Right. Progressive and MAGA. It does not appear that civics and patriotism and reverence for the Constitution are taught in our nation's schools. I know that some of us lawyers need refresher courses. At the very least.

Right now, and likely for the foreseeable future, I find the political climate toxic and increasingly intolerable. (As well as intolerant.) It's painful to observe, much less write about. Even in the limited way that I have done heretofore.

My news feed, all the stuff that comes in the email, X -- I start reading and always wind up depressed. And, mind you, this is is without watching one minute of any cable news network. Of any stripe.

So, for me, it comes down to this: Do I want to continue aiding and abetting an unhealthy political process?

The answer, for now, is that I perceive it as my civic duty. A way I can contribute, even if in only a small way, to the good of society. So... after a summer away... I will get back to work. While I may be trying to bail the ocean with a bucket, I will continue to try to help keep judicial campaigns as oases of civility and even gentility, in the hopes, however slim, that these good qualities can rise up on the ballot and into other races as well. Judicial candidates can lead the way.

But we've all got to keep our safety harnesses securely fastened.

5 comments:

Ann said...

Thank you for this defense of the rule of law and our sacred Constitution.

Anonymous said...

Welcome Back!

Reagan Democrat said...

With all due respect. Your nostalgia for judicial independence and bipartisanship is out of touch. The Republican Party has been fully co-opted to serve the darkest ambitions of an evil man who wants to destroy our democratic way of life. These are exceptional times and, sadly, this aspiring tyrant has been enabled by our conservative bloc on the US Supreme Court more than anyone else. History and future generations will be unkind to anyone who shows indifference or complicity in this uncertain time for our nation. Yes, we have reached an unthinkable point where voting for a Republican this November, or making excuses for people who do, is not merely a sign of cowardice, it is unamerican.

Jack Leyhane said...

@Regan Democrat -- First, thank you for making up a name instead of merely being "anonymous." But... with all due respect as well... your comment represents just the kind of horse manure that has driven me nearly to despair.

Look, I get that you hate Trump. There's a lot to hate about him. We can compare lists some other time. But you are espousing a brand of Trump-hatred that is downright irrational: Voting Republican is "unamerican"? Trump gets no less than 47% in national polls. These people are *all* "unamerican"? Even "making excuses for" people who vote Republican is "unamerican"? It is "cowardice"?

We must burn the village in order to save it? We must destroy democracy in order to save it? What's next? Burn all the witches?

You now oppose judicial independence because parts of some rulings have gone against your team? I hope to heaven, Sir or Madam, that you are not a lawyer. But, if you are, I hope you will have the good grace to turn in your license because you have abandoned, or can no longer fulfill, your oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the State of Illinois.

Please, for your own good, look in the mirror: Even if you are 100% right about Trump's supposed dark ambitions, the person looking back at you, based on your comment here, apparently also wants to destroy our democratic way of life.

For my part, I will continue to support judicial independence, not from a misguided sense of nostalgia, but from a realization that it is necessary to preserve our precious system, which protects us all.

Non-Attorney Spokesperson said...

Great to see new posts from you, Mr. Leyhane, and that you are (or were, until your return) living a full life away from politics. :) I must agree with your decrying of the lack of not merely civility, but sanity, in partisan politics. No party or person is right or wrong all the time. Anyone who sees what the 2024 Presidential election (let alone down-ballot races) looks like should give great pause before casting a ballot. It is far too easy to demonize the "enemy"; it is yet another to point out factual issues with candidates. But truth has long been the first casualty of politics.
And our judicial systems should be stout independent defenders of the Constitution and its amendments, while following binding case law regardless if they agree with it or not, despite the ebb and flow of politics and party. Anything less
indeed imperils not only our rights, but our democracy itself.