California Wants to ‘Out’ Judges

by CalWatchdog Staff | February 27, 2012 3:09 pm

[1]John Seiler:

California just keeps getting nuttier. Why do we put up with it? Why do we stay here?

Judges should have one requirement: They should apply the U.S. Constitution, the California Constitution and all the laws impartially and fairly.

That’s it.

It shouldn’t matter if all justices and judges are women, or all men, or all black, or all white, or all Asian, or all Latino — or all Martian. Just so they applied the law impartially and fairly.

Let’s say you were in a dispute about your home loan. Would you want a judge who a) has the same race, religion, color, sex. etc. as you, but applies the law unfairly; or b) does not have the same race, religion, color, sex., etc. as you, but would apply the law impartially and fairly. The answer obviously should be b). It certainly is for me.

“Justice” means getting what you deserve. And that’s all anyone should wish from a judicial system.

Diversity Über Alles

But that’s not the case any more in California, where the ideology of “diversity” reigns everywhere. This actually is a true story, reported by the Weekly Standard:

“In order to make sure gays and lesbians are adequately represented on the judicial bench, the state of California is requiring all judges and justices to reveal their sexual orientation. The announcement was made in an internal memo sent to all California judges and justices.

“‘[The Administrative Office of the Courts] is contacting all judges and justices to gather data on race/ethnicity, gender identification, and sexual orientation,’ reads an email sent by Romunda Price of the Administrative Office of the Courts. A copy of Price’s memo was obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD. 

“’Providing complete and accurate aggregate demographic data is crucial to garnering continuing legislative support for securing critically needed judgeships’,” Price writes.

“The process of self-revealing one’s sexual orientation is an element of a now yearly process. ‘To ensure that the AOC reports accurate data and to avoid the need to ask all judges to provide this information on an annual basis, the questionnaire asks that names be provided. The AOC, however, will release only aggregate statistical information, by jurisdiction, as required by the Government Code and will not identify any specific justice or judge.’

“Philip R. Carrizosa of the executive office of communications at the Judicial Council of California, the Administrative Office of the Courts, confirmed the authenticity of Price’s email regarding gender identification and sexual orientation to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

“‘Yes, the e-mail is authentic and accurate,’ Carrizosa confirmed in an email. ‘The original bill, which simply provided for 50 new judgeships, was amended in the Assembly in August 2006, to address concerns that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was not appointing enough women and minorities to the bench. In 2011, Senator Ellen Corbett expanded the reporting requirement to include gender identification and sexual orientation’.”

And let’s remember that Arnold bent over backward to make such appointments. But still it wasn’t enough for the diversity Stalinists.

No Secure Info

What About Wikileaks?

All involved in advancing this law, even though living in the high-tech state of California, also seem to be extremely naive about the state of information security nowadays. They promise that only “aggregate statistical information” will be released, not the info on individual judges.

But you know that info will be leaked, or hacked. Just look at two recent events. Wikileaks released[2] internal emails from Stratfor, a private security firm. And Anonymous hacked[3] the computers of HB Gary, a computer security firm. Both these companies’ business is secure information. If they can’t protect themselves from hackers, how is the incompetent California government going to do it?

In 2010, the California DMV was embroiled in a bribing scandal[4] involving its computer information.

And last month, the Orange County Register’s OC Watchdog reported[5]:

“Five months before selecting a contractor, the state of California has already spent $62.6 million on a computer project that the state auditor says is beset by problems with staffing, funding and conflicts of interest.

“Auditor Elaine Howle comes to this conclusion in her new annual letter [6]about the Financial Information System for California, or Fi$Cal, project.

“Fi$Cal[7] is an IT project that seeks to modernize and streamline state’s accounting, budget and cash management systems.

“Today, California relies on several antiquated and department-specific systems to handle these routine tasks. The current systems are independent and don’t talk to each other, making it difficult for policy makers and managers to get accurate, statewide data.

“Fi$Cal seeks to replace this balkanized world with a single, integrated management system[8] for all of state government to use. It has an estimated price tag of $1.6 billion spread over 12 years. In May, the contract is expected to be awarded.

“The auditor, however, has identified several problems with project, not the least of which is that it lost its source of long-term funding.”

[9]‘Out’ Will Be Out

So, we have to assume that whatever info is collected on judges will be made public quickly. Which brings up a situation: Given that these judgeships are highly coveted and lucrative, with massive pay, perks and pensions, won’t people try to game the system?

If not enough “gay” judges are on the benches, won’t some “straights” claim they are “gay” to get the appointments?

How is the state going to check, anyway? Put cameras in the nominees’ homes?

It’s so funny, you could make a comic movie about it!

Wait … wait … someone did. Although it’s not about judges. But it did involve lucrative government pensions.

It was by Adam Sandler: “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.”

Just when you think California can’t get any more absurd, its tyrannical government system more disgraced and delegitimated, it does.

Feb. 27, 2012

Correction: As one of our commentators noted (below), the judges can opt out of the system.

Source URL: https://calwatchdog.com/2012/02/27/california-wants-to-out-judges/

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