Posts Tagged ‘judge’

There is nothing to make a lawyer feel like he is getting old then when his classmates from law school start donning black robes.  And for me, that classmate is Kevin McCann.  Check out his website Kevin McCann for District Court Judge, or “like” his Facebook site here.   Kevin was one of those lawyers who was a good guy even when he was in law school.  (For 80% of my law school class, I would support their opponent).   I haven’t seen him much since we graduated, but he has been kicking butt over in Pierce County as a deputy prosecutor handling major felonies.   And by “major” I mean murder, robberies and rapes etc.   When lawyers get promoted into such positions of doing major felonies, they often get rusty on the work of District Court.  But McCann has kept active in misdemeanor work by working as a judge pro-tem in courts such as the Olympia and Federal Way municipal courts.

So anyway those are my words of support.  But also from a bloggers point of view you have to admit that McCann has a pretty impressive internet presence.  For example, look at his Facebook Fan Site.  McCann is a political newcomer, and yet already he has more FB fans (506) than Supreme Court incumbant Jim Johnson (397) and Supreme Court candidate Charlie Wiggins (327).   The only judicial candidate that seems to have more FB supporters is Justice Sanders.

For those of you interested in Facebook fan sites for local candidates in Eastern Washington, check out the sites for Tom Brown, Dennis Morgan, Rick Weber.   Show your support!  Also, I have blogged in the past about the Spokane Prosecutors race.  More on that next week.

An interesting judicial race is taking shape in Stevens County.  Judge Gina Tveit is defending the position of District Court Judge, to which she was appointed last year by the county commissioners.  (Her campaign site is here.) Challenging the incumbent is Spokane criminal defense lawyer Ronnie Rae who bought a home in the Loon Lake area in 2006. Driving through the county, you can see Gina Tveit signs up, but I didn’t see any for Ronnie Rae yet.  Ronnie Rae has been practicing law for 6 years and is just 32 years old (I have blogged about young candidates in the past here).  The only precedent I could find in Eastern Washington for a judicial candidate so young was 33-year-old John O. Cooney, who beat Mark Laiminger to become a Spokane District Court Judge.  But Cooney had name recognition – has dad was also named John Cooney and he was a judge too.

It seems like in judicial elections the race frequently comes down to name.  In 1990 the Chief Justice Keith Callow of Washington State, a widely respected judge who drew little controversy, was thrown off the bench by voters who chose instead a 39-year-old Charles Johnson who had never been an elected judge and who did not campaign.   Political analysts concluded that voters did not know either candidate and so they picked the one with a familiar-sounding name.  Then in 1998, some knucklehead named “Jim Foley” ran for Supreme Court and boasted of having the advantage of a name voters might mistake for Tom Foley, a former congressman and speaker of the House.  Foley beat an incumbent justice in the primary, but lost to Faith Ireland.  Ireland herself changed her name to “Ireland” from Enyeart a few years prior because it would be “easier” for people.

Let’s wait and see what happens with this judicial race in Stevens County.  Tveit is pretty popular in Stevens County, it seems like Rae will have one heck of a hill to climb.

For more on other judicial races see here.