Early voting is underway in Minnesota. I don't qualify as an undecided voter, and I work in the building where I could cast my ballot tomorrow, so this morning I downloaded the sample ballot for our part of the People's Republic of South Minneapolis, just in case there might be some obscure race that I could research on the Internet before I go to fill in my ovals. While it appears that the current water and soil commissioners are not facing the voters this year, the ballot was loaded with judicial races, almost all of them uncontested. I scanned the columns in search of a race where I'd have to make a choice, and that's when I saw the name Michelle MacDonald, who is challenging incumbent Natalie Hudson for a seat on the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Friends, don't vote for Michelle MacDonald. It seems to me that we should all be able to agree on that--excepting perhaps for my Facebook friends who think that Hillary Clinton, when scratching the left side of her nose with her right hand last Monday evening, was signalling Lester Holt which question to ask next. (It's her fault that Trump was for most of the evening completely incoherent!) Here's a high-level summary of MacDonald's recent career.
She's a family law attorney who over the years has had some trouble with judges who grow weary of her antics. Then in the spring of 2013 she was pulled over in Dakota County on suspicion of drunk driving. She was belligerent toward the officer and refused to take the field sobriety test. Though eventually acquitted of the drunk driving charge, she was found guilty of obstructing the legal process, resisting arrest, and refusing to take the breath test. While this case was pending, she payed the $200 filing fee and became a candidate for associate justice of the Supreme Court. At the Republican party's state convention in the spring of 2014, she gave a fiery speech, uttering the set phrases that would endear anyone to Republican party activists, and was awarded with the party's endorsement. A couple weeks after that, the Star Tribune newspaper published a story concerning MacDonald's recent brushes with the criminal law. From the response of party officials, it became obvious that the newspaper was the only entity vetting their candidates: they were shocked--shocked!--to learn of the charges against her. The party began maneuvering to withdraw its endorsement of MacDonald, who then in August before the election was tagged in Wright County for violating restrictions imposed on her driver's license pending the resolution of the Dakota County charge. The Minnesota Republican Party was sufficiently embarrassed to adopt a rule denying access to its booth at the State Fair to any candidate currently facing criminal charges. She showed up anyway, and was escorted away, but not before the crazy scene of the Republican party's endorsed candidate for Supreme Court justice being forcibly removed from the party's State Fair booth had been caught on tape. (You can hear MacDonald repeatedly making the point, as she's being maneuvered toward the exit, that the state party should support its endorsed candidates, not prevent them from being heard.) In the election that November, MacDonald received an astonishing 46.5% of the vote in her race against incumbent David Lillehaug, a recognized legal giant in the state.
Now MacDonald is back, trying again, though this time without the Republican party's endorsement. In a poll of State Bar Association members conducted before the August 9 primary, incumbent Hudson had the support of 94% of respondents, compared to 3% for MacDonald. The other 3% went to a fellow named Craig Foss, a lawyer who said he was running because he was currently unemployed. In the primary, MacDonald finished ahead of Foss but behind Hudson. The top two finishers move on to the general election, which accounts for the name Michelle MacDonald appearing on the statewide ballot. She's Exhibit A of why we should not have judicial elections, but, since we do, don't vote for her. Hudson for Supreme Court.
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