Four candidates applied to be considered by Governor Markell for the vacant Chief Justiceship. The way the process works, qualified candidates apply for the job, and the Delaware Judicial Nomination Commission then reviews the applications and submits three qualified candidates to the Governor for his decision. In this case, however, the Commission is sending all four candidates through to the Governor: Supreme Court Justice Carolyn Berger, Superior Court Judge Jan Jurden, Court of Chancery Chancellor Leo Strine Jr. and Superior Court President Judge James T. Vaughn Jr.
My money is on Berger or Jurden. Remember the Markell Rule: you go left socially so they don’t realize you’re being screwed economically and educationally. Markell will appoint the state’s first female Chief Justice so as to burnish his progressive credentials in that department.
Polly Sierer was officially sworn in as Newark’s new mayor last night in City Council Chambers. I admit that that I did not follow Newark’s election very closely, since I do not live in Newark and it was a non partisan election focused on local issues. Indeed, I did not have to cover it since Nancy Willing at the Delaware Way did a fantastic job doing so, as she always does on local New Castle County matters. But the election took a turn to the interesting yesterday:
Roe and a small group of residents sought to delay the swearing in over questions that had regarding an outside advocacy group’s activities and confusion regarding polling place information.
Nancy has more. Kavips has much more on what he calls a power grab.
The election law is very clear and is designed to prevent an outside group with lots of money from dominating and one-siding an election before anyone has any idea it is being done…
This law was put in place for the protection of the majority of a municipality’s citizens. It has been a long standing tradition grounded in Delaware election law, that every candidate, PAC, or group trying to influence an election file finance reports. The first deadline is 30 days. The second one is 8 days. Then the final one gets filed at the end of the year.
There was still a window under old law, where a person could spend from the 7th day onward, and the election would be over two months old before any accountability would be mustered. One could then see that one’s official was not the real choice of the people, but perhaps the choice of someone willing to put up a lot of money…
That window was closed by Tony DeLuca last year. After the 7th day, every large expenditure has to be reported in 24 hours… thereby giving the public decent time to acknowledge its influence and use that as part of the electioneering decision.
Polly’s campaign spent $5000 on winning the election. The PAC spent $45,000… That is a big expenditure. Nine times what any other candidate spent.
The PAC did not acknowledge its existence until 14 minutes before the Election Office closed on the eve of the election….