UnFinching support of status quo . . .

In a report in The Tennessean last week we learned that Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey is not comfortable with elections (he should take that up with the generations of Tennesseans who placed and maintained that provision in the Constitution), and wants the House and Senate Speakers (aka, himself) to have discretion to appoint whomever they want to the judicial commissions. But he also says that anything less than judicial elections needs to be approved by the voters. Mark my words, Democrats will NEVER agree to letting the voters settle the question (again--as they did in 1978).

But I loved Democratic Lawyer and Cookeville Rep. Henry Fincher's attempted criticism of Ramsey's proposal:

He's presenting the people of Tennessee with two poor options: Either allow him unfettered, unilateral control over the state's judiciary, or bring in expensive elections where big corporations and insurance companies can buy the Supreme Court.

Under the current system, which Fincher supports, the Lawyers' Lobby has "unfettered, unilateral control over the state's judiciary." And "the big corporations and insurance companies" are--like Fincher, squarely behind commission-based selection of judges and indifferent to what's in the Constitution.

Another Democratic lawyer, Democratic House Judiciary Chairman Kent Coleman, from Murfreesboro said,

The process that currently exists does a good job in taking as much politics out of the process as possible . . . I think that's a better process than giving the speaker full discretion.

The only politics that the current system takes out of selecting judges is the kind of politics that takes place in public and that gives voters a voice in the process.