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Florida Judges Face Organized Opposition

April 27th, 2012 by Mike Vasilinda

Every six years, Appellate judges in Florida must go before voters to keep their jobs. It is called Merit Retention. This year three Florida Supreme Court judges are before voters, and for the first time there is organized opposition.

Pariente, Lewis and Quince in Crosshairs

Restore Justice 2012 bills itself as a grassroots effort working to unseat three judges on the Florida Supreme Court. On the web site, founder Jesse Phillips sites a 2006 case on the death penalty and a 2010 case that saw a constitutional amendment relating to relating to Health Care Act get thrown off the ballot. The judges decided the ballot summary would have misled voters.

“They made the decision two months before the election to, from my view point, disenfranchise every voter in Florida who had a right to vote on these ballot questions” says Phillips.

Lawmakers fixed what the court found objectionable. Voters will see the health care amendment in 2012, along with three supreme court judges on the same ballot.

Those judges made news when they had to stop a court proceeding to file paperwork to have their names on the ballot. That brought this letter from the sponsor of the once failed health care amendment suggesting the justices broke the law.

Their spokesman says non-sense. The campaign to oust three Florida justices comes after three judges were kicked off the bench in Iowa. Insiders fear if they win here, they’ll spread the campaign nationally.

And Stengel, the justices spokesman, says that makes this vote about more than three judges and a couple of opinions. “and whether or not we have a fair and impartial judiciary that acts without fear or favor” says Stengel.

Voters traditionally cast fewer ballots for judges than they do on big time races at the top of the ballot. To be retained in office, justices must get at least fifty percent saying yes. In 2011, lawmakers tried but failed to raise that threshold to sixty percent.

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