Judicial District 9 consists of the following Minnesota counties: Aitkin, Beltrami, Cass, Clearwater, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, Kittson, Koochiching, Lake of the Woods, Mahnomen, Marshall, Norman, Pennington, Polk, and Roseau.
The 9th Judicial District Convention was held in Bemidji, MN on April 9, 2011.
Chair Ron Niemala called the meeting to order at 10:00 am which was followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and an Invocation.
The Chair then appointed Convention Chairs, with Terry Stone as Rules Chair and Pat Ritter as Credentials Chair. He then appointed Shane B. (not sure of last name) as Parliamentarian and Darrell Carter as Sergeant-of-Arms.
The preliminary and final Credentials Report showed 21 delegates and nine alternates present. Eight of the alternates were seated, creating a voting strength of 29.
The Convention Rules were adopted, and the general meeting proceeded with reports from the Secretary, Treasurer, Deputy Chair and Chair.
The following officers (all incumbents) were then elected:
Ron Niemala as Chair
Terry Stone as Deputy Chair
Grace Shook as Secretary
Paul Ritter as Treasurer
A discussion ensued concerning issues that need to be addressed by the MN legislature. all of the Judiciary changes proposed are currently within the MN GOP Party Platform. Some of the talking points were as follows:
The Judiciary, at this juncture of time, is only accountable to itself. The MN Constitution gives specific oversight to the legislative branch of government to oversee the judiciary. These changes are also about the "checks and balances" in government and the making of each branch of government "equal" rather than one branch more powerful than another.
The judiciary writes its' ow rules (cannons) and self-policies itself. This is essentially the "fox watching the hen house." To maintain a check on the judiciary, it is necessary that the legislative branch of government "oversee" and "keep in check" a judiciary run wild. It is for this reason that we have opposed the following changes to how the judiciary operates, elects and funds its operations. There exists a "de-facto" bias and retaliation within the judiciary whenever a challenge is made at the seat of a sitting "incumbent" judge by a challenger. Retaliations comes in the form of courtroom discrimination against the attorney who chose to challenge the judge on the bench. Impartiality is out the door. The judiciary has, due to retirements and appointments, effectively created a system whereby judges choose their successors, without having to stand for election, by retiring early and having the Governor appoint a replacement, thus avoiding an election. This is a violation of the constitutional rights of the voters of the State of Minnesota, failing to have judges elected rather than appointed.
We need the following to be done:
A. Remove the word "incumbent" from all judicial ballots.
B. Provide that each District Judge stand for election only in the county that he or she serves.
C. Enact a statutory code of ethics for judges and lawyers and an independent board to administer it in order to removed this conflict of interest from the Supreme Court of Minnesota.
D. Require that the Governor fills judicial vacancies with people who will serve out the remaining term of the office and then stand for election.
For more than six years we have endeavored to set a framework that would set in place a "guarantee" that the voters of Minnesota would always have the "right" to vote on judges going into office, not just as retention elections. The opportunity to effectively accomplish this is here NOW. If we wait, will there arise another opportunity to pass such all-important legislation? Do we want to allow the judiciary to continue to ignore the State Constitution and the rights of the people in the manner that it operates from the bench and within the confines of chambers? The time is now to put into place "oversight" of the Judicial Branch of government that the legislature has abrogated for too long.
There are bills that are being introduced in the House and Senate to address these issues. Stay informed and support our Republican representatives who are working to right thing wrong.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:55 am.
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