Wisdom of Supreme Justice Boggs applauded
Thank you for printing the article illuminating the message of Georgia’s Supreme Justice Michael Boggs’ recent State of the Judiciary address. (“Ga.’s top judge: No more partisan judicial elections,” Jan. 29).
I applaud his wisdom about so many matters, but most of all, his desire to see the election of all of the state’s judges be nonpartisan. It makes no sense to have judges campaigning with a party affiliation. I cannot think of any legal decisions that would be served by a judge being identified with a particular party. I also found his support for using a digital system to record certain court hearings very wise.
MARGARET E. HOLT, WATKINSVILLE
GOP has stacked court with conservative judges
Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Boggs disingenuously claims he wants to eliminate party affiliation references in all judicial elections. The reality is that Republicans have gotten most judgeships into Republican-leaning hands by using a little-known law that allows early-retiring judges to be appointed by the Republican governor, who can then push back scheduled elections by two years, thus giving the de-facto Republican, appointed judge the power of incumbency and the electoral shield of “impartiality” by removing all reference to party beliefs.
This is how the Georgia Supreme Court has become stacked with Republican judges. Yet those same party beliefs clearly impact rulings: most evidently with the clearly unconstitutional and unscientific “Heartbeat Bill,” the six-week abortion ban before a heart even exists that was handed down by Republican legislators while Roe v. Wade was still constitutional law. The Supreme Court ruling on the subsequent lawsuit was filled with retroactive and theological justifications to enable that clearly unconstitutional action.
BARBARA SHARP, MARIETTA
Trump wages war on public schools
President Donald Trump’s threat to withhold federal funding from any public school that teaches anything regarding race, gender or politics is just the latest offensive in the ongoing Republican attack on public education. Republicans don’t want an educated electorate. That’s why they’re waging war on public education, as reflected in school vouchers that take badly needed funds from public schools and transfer them to private institutions; MAGA-inspired curriculum reform, including a Christian orientation and a sanitized version of American history; failure to support teachers and pay them a competitive salary; and banning “immoral” books from classrooms and libraries. Their goal is to privatize public education because they consider public education “socialist.”
When Trump said, “I love the uneducated,” it was because he knows they constitute a major source of Republican support and are more easily manipulated by emotion than by critical thinking and facts.
LUCAS CARPENTER, CONYERS
Dems failed to hold Trump accountable
Carolyn Bourdeaux’s Jan. 24 op-ed about the lack of guardrails for Trump mostly nails the problem: Trump is uncontrollable (“There are no more guardrails for president”). However, in trying to show balance in her opinions, she has to cast some blame on Democrats. If you were Joe Biden faced with Trump promising all kinds of vindictiveness, wouldn’t you protect your son, family and other innocent and courageous people like Anthony Fauci and Liz Cheney from gross abuse of hateful power?
The real fault of the Democrats was not their policies (which have given us the best economy in the world under Biden), but not forcefully contradicting Trump’s lies and misinformation about Democratic successes. The Biden administration (notably Merrick Garland) made the huge mistake of focusing too much of its efforts on the Jan. 6 rioters and not convicting Trump of his many crimes. This enabled Trump to play the same delay game he had played all his life. He should be in jail now instead of being president.
JOHN SHACKLETON, ATLANTA
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