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this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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Mildly Interesting
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As someone from outside America, I find it’s wild that people are elected into what should be purely meritocrical positions such as coroner and judge and sherriff. Up here in Canada, you need to earn those positions through job performance; none of those are elected positions. I mean, why should they be? How could these jobs be possibly improved by utilizing a popularity contest for an evaluation that should be completely skills-based?
They also need no qualifications. You can be any of those straight out of high school, theoretically.
It did happen in the small town where I grew up. Everyone hated the current Justice of the Peace, and an 18-year-old ran and won. He was in his late seventies when I was in high school and seemed like a good judge when I had to see him for a speeding ticket. He is dead now, but I always found it interesting how he just picked a career and did it the whole time. Never lost a race.
That kid is the point I think. You start with a bad judge, some kid gets given a chance, and it turns out the kid is wise and even tempered and manages to be a judge everyone would like to keep.
It's from an era in US politics where there was DEEP suspicion of literally any position being assigned via appointment instead of by a more "accountable to the public" election. Plenty of state judiciary positions are elected as well, and the crowning political achievement of the movement was a constitutional amendment that opened US senate seats to election instead of appointment by state legislature, which is what they had been traditionally.
We should have retained or even amped that suspicion. Look at what SCOTUS has become, just an extension of the major political party's power.
Nah, elected judgeships have been disastrous for the states that implement them. Life term with no reasonable means to punish or remove them whenever they fuck around though, that ought to be corrected and then some.
Yeah, it should be an appointed position. It's silly.
My county changed the sheriff position from elected to appointed by the county council a few years back. A bunch of people flipped out over it but I think it has been great.
As a side note, why do counties tend to have councils running them instead of an executive, who would get the title "Count". We need more Counts in America.
I think because we very pointedly jettisoned all noble titles as a component of a little kerfluffle about 250 years ago.
Oh sure, you and your LOGIC.
Sheriffs should absolutely not be elected. I've always thought that was bullshit.
I completely disagree with you! Opinions are wild, man!
Sheriff and judge make sense, or you'll just get partisan people who benefit certain entities put into power by politicians. That's why it's wild to me that SCOTUS is appointed and not elected. They're one of the most powerful organizations in the country, who can dramatically change our laws based on their interpretations, and they're all completely partisan now.
Elected judges really isn't all that common in the world. To me (Dutchman), electing judges/sheriffs sounds wild. Police does their own hiring, same goes for the judicial system. Judges decide who gets to be a high court judge, there's no politics involved at all. That to me sounds like a massive violation of the trias politica.
The police do their own hiring here too. But the police chief is usually elected. Same with the sheriff, who manages the county. They're usually an elected position, and then they appoint deputies. So the majority of police officers and sheriff deputies are not elected, but the people running those departments are.
I wasn’t even talking about appointed positions, I was talking about earned positions. Much like a promotion from middle management to C-suite, it isn’t appointed or elected. It’s an evaluation of whom would be the best candidate for the position based on partisan-free metrics.
You start being partisan in your work as a lawyer, that translates directly into poor job performance, which would make you ineligible for any Judge position.
Canada has many positions that are earned, but which would be corrupted by either appointed or elected officials.