New York State Supreme Court Elections Guide
Buried by the hoopla surrounding the 23rd congressional district special election, New York Supreme Court races have gone largely unnoticed this year. The Adirondack Park is divided between two Judicial Districts: The fourth, comprising Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, St. Lawrence, Saratoga, Warren and Washington counties (with Montgomery and Schenectady outside the Blue Line); and the fifth, comprising Herkimer, Lewis and Oneida counties (with Jefferson, Oswego and Onondaga outside the park). Links to Supreme Court candidate websites after the jump. . .
The slate of candidates competing for two seats in the 4th District includes: Acting Supreme Court Justice Barry D. Kramer from Schenectady running on the Democratic and Conservative lines, Brian S. Stewart from Lake Placid and Bellmont (inside the Blue Line), running on the Democratic line, Acting Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Meyer from Saranac Lake running on the Republican Line, Justice Thomas E. Mercure of Ft. Edward running on the Republican and Conservative lines.
Candidates for the two seats in the 5th District are: Acting Supreme Court Justice James W. McCarthy of Oswego running on the Democrat, Republican, Conservative and Independence lines, County Court Judge Walter Hafner, Jr. of Hannibal running on the Democratic line, and Supreme Court Justice James C. Tormey of Syracuse running on the Republican and Independence lines.
New York State Courts offers an impartial voters' guide on all judicial elections (worth a visit) here.
15 Comments:
Mark,
Thanks for posting this. While our local papers are busy reporting the police blotter, Halloween pictures, or playing catch up with yesterday's news - thanks in part to you, we're out front with what matters.
John, you guys just started running campaign stuff two days ago, give me a break.
I just scanned all the upstate papers, and I'm seeing an average of three-to-four election-related pieces in every paper for the last week. Add to that coverage of local races, county DA and sheriff races, town races, judge races, etc., I'm wondering where the Almanack's coverage of all these races has been?
I figured that would bring some of you out.
When I looked around the web just before making that comment, it looked just as I described.
Anonymous, look again. We've had about dozen stories on this election since May.
Thanks for reading.
John: Daily Enterprise, three stories today alone. Press Republican: three today. Watertown Daily Times: FIVE. WXAX, WPTZ and WNBZ: at least one apiece. 12 stories on this election since May? That's not bad, but I've seen more than that in the Enterprise in 12 days...
Let's give local papers and radio credit where it's due here. The reporters work exhausting hours pre election day trying to cover every race. The Almanack has done armchair stuff--good armchair stuff, I've been a reader rather than contributor in this department--but we're not in the newsgatherers' league on this.
Mostly old news my friend. And considering the Watertown paper's approach to this election, I would hardly be heaping acclaim there.
I'm not heaping claim, I'm just clarifying that at each one of those sites, the lead stories are all election-related, not Halloween...
Maybe I'm wrong, but you won't find a story like this anywhere.
Do a search for news about the judicial election.
The bottom line is that the local news reports have offered, generally, little of value.
There are exceptions, but it's mostly comments from punditry, this post, which I intended to praise (albeit ham-handedly), actually offers voters a way to decide between candidates.
In the new era, I think folks would rather visit the links like those in this post, then read about the candidates second hand from news outlets with their own axes to grind.
Of course, I haven't even found a story on this part of the coming election yet.
It's not about access to the candidates, or the number of stories, but about how people can find out about the races and make up their own minds.
This post does just that like no other report this election season.
John,
Untrue man. WNBZ has filed two judicial election stories this season. The first one involved interviews with at-least 4 of the candidates.
BTW, Kramer is a very good interview.
Nathan had a good ones this past week two:
http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/509474.html
Thanks Jon, noted.
I could only find these two:
http://www.wnbz.com/August%202009/082009/SupremeCourtCandidates.htm
http://www.wnbz.com/October%202009/101309/LocalJudge.htm
I think part of the problem is difficulty of finding stories. Even though I get the WNBZ RSS feed, I missed those stories.
It would also helpful if these stories linked to some some of the sources.
For the record, WNBZ and the ADE are both high on my list of good local news.
Folks, I think a little perspective is in order here. This piece is basically a non-earth-shaking reminder of Tuesday's other races (and not even the local ones!) following a weekend where all the pre-Election Day oxygen was consumed by coverage of the marquee race in the 23rd CD. A reminder with links to more subjective information. I spent more time drawing the little picture than writing the damned thing.
So please, let's call off the Pulitzer committee and acknowledge that there has been quite a bit of local coverage out there. Though it is often hard to concentrate on the local races with the circus passing through town.
Anyway, all of these back-and-forths aside, this has been a stellar election season for an off year. The 23rd race has indeed stolen the spotlight -- rightfully, I suppose -- from a number of other intriguing races, like the Essex County DA race and even the Tupper Lake town and village races... I complain about not getting enough sleep lately, but the truth is, when it's over I'll miss the constant action...
No worries John,
I can imagine it's pretty hard to keep up with the huge amount of information coming from so many sources.
I do agree with your suggustions about our online stories. It is something we should probably look into in the future.
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