In his July essay entitled 'The Body': So September 10th, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter observed that the retirement of Minnesota Governor Jesse (The Body) Ventura is "a sign of different times. Like Gary Condit and Bill Maher, Ventura will likely be viewed by history as a 'September 10th' kind of guy--a diverting luxury in an angry but placid pre-war epoch.… We’ve learned that wrestlers can govern until government has to wrestle with something truly important."1

What, you are asking, does this have to do with the County Bar? With the anniversary of September 11 approaching, Alter’s observation motivated me to support an Executive Council Resolution on July 9, 2002, endorsing the three Sitting Circuit Court Judges who will stand for election commencing with the September 10 primary.

The soundness of that Resolution was further reinforced as I participated in two days of Judicial Nominating Commission interviews of applicants for two District Court vacancies in mid July. I was struck by the fact that the current Sitting Circuit Court Judges are all veterans of the merit selection process. In March of this year, the lay and lawyer members of the Judicial Nominating Commission grilled Mike Finifter and Ruth Jakubowski with probing, tough questions about their fitness, experience and willingness to endure months of late nights and weekends on the campaign trail. As many as nine other bar groups had the opportunity to conduct interviews and submit comments about each candidate’s suitability to become a Circuit Court Judge. All of the Commission interviews were preceded by extensive background checks, including interviews of opposing counsel. Ask anyone who has worked through the process; it is very rigorous and it should be.

Just as the job of lawyering has become harder, so too have the demands of judging. On one level, administering justice in a competent and efficient manner not only safeguards individual rights, it can also prevent unnecessarily protracted, costly litigation. In a larger sense, the success and longevity of our democracy is predicated on the existence of an independent judiciary comprised of individuals with the highest qualities of character, integrity, judicial temperament and legal experience.

With all this in mind, your Executive Council publicly announced in July its support of Judges Finifter, Jakubowski and Wright, each of whom passed the scrutiny of the Nominating Commission merit selection process.

In this post September 11 world of ours, these esteemed members of the Bench not only merit our support, but the Bar and the public need them as well "to wrestle with [the] truly important."

1 Newsweek, July 1, 2002, p. 37