Lately, I have been pondering the issues of why we elect the people we do and the ever-growing role of money in the electoral process. Studies have shown that most people only pay attention to politics for about two weeks prior to the elections, and then they get most of their information from the ads. As for local politics, forget it! Nobody pays attention to that stuff! There is a great novel by John Grisham novel called The Appeal. Its based on an actual case (involving the Massey Coal Company if youre interested). In the novel, the leaders of a major corporation want to influence the outcome of a suit that has been brought against the company for environmental contamination. It turns out that (in the book anyway) neither lower court decisions nor laws enacted by the legislature matter much because the state supreme court gets the last word. Conveniently for the corporation, the state where the action takes place has elected supreme court justices, and judges need money in their campaign funds just like every other politician. The cheapest option is for the corporation to simply by influence in the court. They dont even need to influence everybody; all they need is a 5/4 decision in their favor. They buy a supreme court justice and its a bargain in comparison to covering a multi-gazillion-dollar liability. In the end, the corporations ends are served and everybody else....aw, just read the book. Of course, this is just fiction except that the judge-buying part was based on an actual case, too. FYI, 22 states have elected supreme court justices. Thats state and local elections for ya. What are ya gonna do? I have long feared we are going the wrong way as a nation. The good news is were making great time. We may not get the government we need, but I suspect we are getting exactly the government we deserve.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 16:10:31 +0000
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