In December 2018, incumbent Vladimir Putin won re-election as president of Russia for his second consecutive term in office with 77% of the vote.
Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin finished second with 11.9% of the vote.
By comparison, 14 candidates running for judge in Nassau County in the recent election received 100% of the vote in 14 races.
This included candidates for county, family and district courts.
How is this possible that elections for judges in Nassau can be less competitive than elections for president in Russia?
Easy. The candidates for judge in Nassau County had no competition.
All 14 candidates were cross-endorsed by the Republican, Democratic and Conservative parties
The choice offered to Nassau voters on their election ballots was whether to choose the judicial candidate as a Republican, a Democrat or Conservative parties. Which is to say voters really had no choice.
In the business world, this is known as collusion and is not legal.
On the bright side, the 14 judges did allow Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the Nassau and state Democratic parties, to claim victories in an election in which Democratic candidates across New York greatly underperformed and a red wave swept across the county.
This, in an election, in which Democrats across the country far exceeded everyone’s expectations to retain control of the Senate and come close to retaining the House.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Ballone, a Democrat who has often spoken out against cross-endorsements in Suffolk, said two years ago it was “extraordinary that we allow this blatantly undemocratic and sham process to continue” in races for judgeships” and other local offices in New York.
But in Nassau County in 2022 the choice remained with Republican Party County Chairman Joe Cairo and Jacobs.
In defending cross-endorsements two years ago, Jacobs pointed out that under the rules of the New York State Unified Court System, candidates cannot campaign on political issues, only on factors such as their experience.
That makes cross-endorsements valuable to voters trying to make choices in the ballot booth, Jacobs said.
“When it’s the judiciary, I will bet a lot of money that other than the candidates’ mothers, no one knows who’s running or what they’re about,” Jacobs said.
This may be true, but it is also an odd point for the chairman of the Democratic Party in Nassau to make given the party’s responsibility to promote its candidates. It’s also very disingenuous.
One reason no one hears about the candidates is that they don’t have opponents. The public just might have a reason to learn about a particular candidate if given a choice.
That’s the whole reason for political campaigns.
Besides, even though voters may not have the chance to ask judges about their views on political issues, a candidate’s experience is not a bad criterion by which to judge.
For instance, you might just want someone running for a 14-year term that currently pays more than $200,000 a year to have actual experience as a judge – something that some party-picked candidates have lacked in the past.
And even if we accept the party leaders’ contention that voters should not pick judges, why turn it over to the chairs of the two political parties – two private organizations whose leadership the public has no voice in choosing, especially the 26 percent of voters who have no party affiliation?
If Jacobs and Cairo don’t like the current system, they can lobby the state Legislature to come up with a different method.
Federal judges are nominated by the president and voted on by the Senate. The recent selection process of Supreme Court justices has given us all a lesson about what can wrong with that.
But are two unelected people operating in proverbial smoke-filled rooms – one, Cairo, who operates a law office and the other, Jacobs, who owns camps – selecting judges really the best solution?
If you think so, consider that this comes at a time when Jacobs’ judgment and competence as chairman of both the Nassau County and state Democratic Party has come under heavy fire following mid-term election results in Nassau and New York State.
Democrats, particularly progressives, have blasted the state Democratic Party’s performance, particularly in getting out the vote. Several have called for Jacobs, who was appointed by then Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to be replaced as state chairman.
Yes, Gov. Kathy Hochul won re-election with 52% of the vote over Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, a President Trump acolyte, who received 46% of the vote.
But Democrats hold a more than 2-to-1 advantage in voter registration over Republicans statewide and have won recent elections for governor by an average margin of 14%.
Democrats, without the usual strong showing at the top of the ticket, also lost state Senate and Assembly seats, including the one held by incumbent Anna Kaplan in the 7th District.
In Nassau, registered Democrats currently outnumber registered Republicans 422,000 to 322,000, followed by so-called blanks with no party registration who number 277,000.
But Republicans won the vote for nearly every election in Nassau starting with U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer’s race against Republican Joe Pinion.
This followed town and county elections in Nassau in 2021 in which Republicans won every countywide seat – county executive, district attorney, comptroller and clerk – as well as all three town supervisor positions and control of the county Legislature.
Football coaches get fired for far less.
In both elections, Republicans hammered Democrats on crime, calling bail reform the main culprit.
Democrats had strong arguments against those attacks and a strong case against Zeldin’s ideas and qualifications to address crime.
But Democrats on crime were like a batter who can’t hit a curve even if he or she knows it’s coming.
Jacobs is not the only reason being cited for the Democrats’ weak performance in New York. Other reasons cited include what some Democrats are calling a poor campaign by Hochul and even comments made by New York City Mayor Eric Adams on crime and bail reform.
Another reason cited was the Democratic Legislative leadership’s handling of the redistricting of House districts.
After a bipartisan commission called for under state law failed to come up with acceptable districts, the Democratic leaders developed a map so one-sided that a Democratic-appointed judge tossed it out and then failed to respond to a request to fix it.
The end result was a fair map that increased the competitiveness of races around the state – including Nassau.
This is actually a good thing for democracy in New York. Unfortunately, Republican-controlled states like Texas and Florida were able to draw partisan maps that gave them an advantage in House races.
New York Republicans were very vocal in calling for fairness in the changes to the House districts.
But don’t expect the same enthusiasm for democracy when it comes to changes in legislative districts currently under consideration in Nassau County where Democrats have that 100,000 advantage in registered voters.
When Democrats held a similar advantage 10 years ago, the Republican-controlled Legislature designed a map that produced a majority of registered Republicans in 12 of the 19 districts.
You could expect that same lack of enthusiasm for reforming how judges are selected in Nassau County. But that doesn’t have to be the final answer.
Voters across the country rejected election deniers in state races Nov. 8. Nassau voters could do something similar for the selection of judges and the redrawing of district lines.
It’s just a matter of will.
