The Workday Liberal

[UPDATE: I posted this on D.Kos and 'Clyde' left a very informative comment. I thought it is important to understand due to the title of this post so his comment is this:
FYI, a 'Supreme Court' in NY is a lower court... it's in what other states would be called a superior court. It handles cases that are higher than a certain amount of money. If it screws up, you can appeal its decisions to its Apellate Division. If the Apellate Division screws up, the last step (before Federal courts) is the NY State Court of Appeals. So "Supreme Court" may sound like the highest court in NY state, but it's actually two levels down.]


The Seattle P.I. brings us this news regarding Republican Judge/activist Thomas Spargo:

A state commission has recommended removing a judge who sought donations to his defense fund from lawyers who were trying cases before him.

In the opinion released Friday, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct also scolded Justice Thomas Spargo for giving out $5 gift coupons for gas and coffee and buying drinks for potential voters in a local campaign in 1999.

Spargo will accept the removal rather than appeal to the state's highest court, said his lawyer, E. Stewart Jones Jr.

The Republican judge, reached at his chambers in Albany, declined to comment on the commission's actions.

The watchdog commission said Spargo "conveyed an appearance of exploiting his judicial office for personal benefit" when he and friends pressured the lawyers to contribute to a fund created to help pay for his battle against the commission over complaints filed since January 2002.

Now you might wonder why some lefty blogger from Oregon gives a hoot about some righty judge in N.Y. being frogmarched out of office. It is because of Judge Spargos involvement in the Florida recount debacle of 2000.

New York's Commission on Judicial Conduct has longstanding rules that stopped Judges from overt partisan political activities with the eye to forcing voters to consider judges based solely upon their individual qualifications. Recently federal courts have loosened these rules so the issue of Judge Spargo's conduct in the Florida recount was not the reason for the Judges dismissal by the commission.

However it just seems to be common sense that Judges, who are supposed to be fair and balanced, (not Fox news fair and balanced mind you) should not be engaged in activities that would call that objectiveness into question. And the actions taken by Judge Spargo in Florida were politically inflammatory to say the least.

Most notably Judge Spargo was part of the organized riot that featured so many prominent republican Congressional staffer during the Miami-Dade recount. Judge Spargo actually said

"There was a relatively good-natured socialization that was going on,"

It sure is nice to know that Judge Spargo considers disenfranchising the vote and intimidating elections workers "good natured" socializing, but I think it is a freaking disgrace! The Republicans moved in a bunch of politically connected out of staters and caused a huge scene during the recount. As related by Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal:

The tipping point came Wednesday, after the Florida Supreme Court said manual counts must be included, but by a Sunday deadline. The three canvassers reacted first by dropping a complete recount, thus omitting pro-Bush Cuban-American precincts. They would count only the 10,750 ballots that machines had spit out for no presidential vote. These were mostly from Democratic precincts.

Then the Three Counting Sages repaired to semi-isolation, forcing TV cameras to watch through a window and keeping reporters 25 feet away. That did it. Street-smart New York Rep. John Sweeney, a visiting GOP monitor, told an aide to "Shut it down," and semi-spontaneous combustion took over.

So we actually have an out of state Judge who was involved in stopping the democratic process in Florida. The federals have given him a pass on that particular issue. Yet however it was done, I do think this Judge was given what he deserves.