Yesterday, the release was issued from the Governor’s office that he has tapped a prominent personal injury lawyer, a Democrat, to be a judge on the Santa Cruz Superior Court – Paul Burdick.
Burdick’s appointment comes in the County of Santa Cruz where the Santa Cruz Sentinal had reported that a Democratic Women’s Club of Santa Cruz County was lobbying for the appointment of a Democrat, and a woman. I guess they got 50% of what they were looking for.
Burdick has some history as a public defender, according to today’s Sentinal article:
Burdick has worked as a fill-in judge at the courthouse since 1990, handling civil settlement conferences, small claims matters and the traffic calendar.
Jerry Christensen of Biggam, Christensen & Minsloff, the county’s contract public defender firm, said he is hopeful Burdick’s criminal defense experience, while limited, will give him a "good perspective on how dear our Constitutional rights are.
In the first article, a spokesperson for the Governor said (and this is as of February 4) that, "Schwarzenegger has appointed 118 judges since he was elected in October 2003: 58 Republicans, 46 Democrats and 14 who declined to state their affiliation."
Since there are two other court openings in Santa Cruz County, the FlashReport hopes that the Governor will appoint two Republicans to those vacancies. We certainly understand the lobbying by local Democrats in Santa Cruz County – there is no such thing as a "non-partisan" office, and we believe that a Republican Governor should be appointing Republican judges – certainly by an overwhelming amount, not the plurality mentioned above.
Oh yes, if you haven’t seen it already, on Steve Frank’s California Political News and Views website, Steve Kaufold, the San Francisco Area Chairman of the California Republican Lawyers Association, has penned a interesting column on this Governor and judicial appointments.
February 11th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Virtually every elected official worth his salt has appointed numerous people from the opposite political party to important positions, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. In fact some have appointed majority’s on different committees of members of the opposite party. The question should not be what their registration is, but how they interpret the law. JMO!