350
Portland judge says she’s too busy running for reelection to oversee trials
(www.oregonlive.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
350 points (99.7% liked)
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The fact it's satire doesn't make it untrue, and we have plenty of statistics to back it up, but it seems the only thing Americans like more than complaining about their broken system is insisting that any change at all would make it worse.
Are you arguing that surrendering the appointment of judges and prosecutors to politicians and their appointees would lead to better outcomes in the United States?
i can't tell if you're arguing against chevron or regulatory capture. regulatory capture = bad, right? chevron (short bad summary: appointed agencies have expert opinions because they're staffed by experts, so treat them as expert) = good, if the agency isn't captured by the industry it's trying to regulate, right? are we at the same starting point and assumptions or are you coming from somewhere else?
I was under the impression we are arguing about the wisdom of changing the system in America where we elect judges and prosecutors, which was instituted in the mid 19th century, to one where politicians and their appointees simply appoint them as is done in most of the world. I am virulently arguing that allowing our politicians and establishment to appoint judges and prosecutors would lead vastly worse outcomes.
That the rot in our institutions has spread throughout, and even if you think it works in another country well, it won't here.
Really it is laughable to think it would be better, despite your hundreds of supporters on here. Ha, hahaha. People are fucking stupid. No offense.
my what
In reference to the totality of votes and support of not electing judges and prosecutors clearly.
i haven't even taken a position dude, i was just trying to see where you were.
one side of my family, they practice law. my opinion is nuanced. there are definite positives from citizen review of judges but most judicial decisions are opaque, most citizens know so little about law as to not understand what judges do, honestly if we could properly address the issue of regulatory capture first (which would solve a hell of a lot of problems in government, but that's another can of worms and it's one i'm legitimately not sure how to solve) i would have very little problem leaving it to appropriate government appointees. because if regulatory capture is addressed, (and that's a huge, glaring red flag assumption) then nonpartisan legal experts would be doing the judicial appointments and review.
judge elections are where the citizens get to step in and say, as a random example out of nowhere "hey, judge who gave rapist brock allen turner no sentence? you don't get to be a judge anymore" so like, that's their only legal recourse. Remember, "There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge. Please use in that order." We absolutely do not want to be shooting judges (that's a complete failure of society), and we really don't want to be putting them on trial for making stupid decisions (they have what is called sovereign immunity for their decisions made legally from the bench, specifically judicial immunity if the AI summary on the search i just ran didn't lie to me. sounds right and i think that's what my lawyer siblings taught me i don't know years ago) so what we have left are soap box and ballot box. Soap box isn't great, because turning the populace against the justice/criminal-punishment/whatever-euphemism-you-want-to-use/legal system such that they lose faith in the ability to obtain justice is not good for society altogether. So the ballot box theoretically remains as a viable outlet/pressure valve for the public to be able to get a small measure of justice it is unable to get in the jury box. Even when actual justice remains out of reach, allowing the public to vote against the judges who presided over the courts that denied them justice lets the public feel they have recourse.
Do you see the theory?
I don't agree with any of that. First of all, lawyers are a cancer on society. Parasites.
My point is unanswered here, I claim electing them is better, because we could take it back, even if the system is corrupted now, you are saying/not saying to give that power to politicians and their appointees.
It's a simple argument. You trust them, I don't.
Okay, so you didn't bother reading anything I wrote did you.
I did read it, and your wishy washy support non support of giving away our voting rights to politicians.
then you didn't understand it. It's not worth the effort dumbing it down anymore for you, sorry.
Kinda a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
Elected, you get this judge.
Unelected, you get the current US Supreme Court...
With elections we can take back control, without them we cannot. The process is corrupted now, but in the hands of politicians we are powerless with the way things are going.
Judges and prosecutors run unopposed more often than not, there is next to no information about them, and both parties' candidates being the same is never more true than with them. But it doesn't have to be that way, and we've gotten a few reform DA's elected, and they've gotten viciously attacked by their State's old boys their entire terms.
"Nothing can be done to change this, says only nation where this regularly happens"
How does that relate to the subject at hand? Are you a real person? I made a real argument, respond to the point, or maybe you wouldn't feel more comfortable on fucking twitter.
By using the same onion quote I used several comments earlier, I am both pointing out the circular nature the discussion has taken on, and strengthening my point, since your current phrasing sounds even more similar to the idea that Americans uniquely insist that they are unable to change anything, even though other countries have changed in exactly those ways and started addressing their problems.
You insist that you're special snowflakes different from everyone else, and come up with reasons for why you can't possibly change, rather than just picking issues and starting to address them in some way, even if imperfect.
Republicans have deluded Americans into thinking that nothing can change. That is the rot at the heart of America.
Drivel.