This year, there’ll be a bunch of judicial candidates on the ballot, running for Cuyahoga County judgeships and Ohio Supreme Court Justice seats.
Locally, the county judges have a huge impact on people’s lives, while the Supreme Court races could literally decide the future of our state, given the court’s role in overseeing the redistricting process. Sure, you can always vote for the Irish woman’s name — Gallagher is a winner here in Cuyahoga with seven of them on our various courts — but that’s probably not the best way to allocate your vote.
Instead, a good place to start is the website Judge4Yourself.com, which invites candidates to fill in a questionnaire featuring such basic information as where they got their law degree, how many years they’ve practiced and what kind of law they’ve practiced, and compiles the ratings from the five county bar associations.
With a primary coming up — sometime or another, once the Republicans in Columbus get serious about passing district maps — the site is active again. They’ve only got one race ranked right now, for juvenile court, a really important seat given the effect on young lives at a critical junction; there are four primary contenders. But you should bookmark the site, because there’ll be many more competitive races in the fall.