Friday is the first day to vote early.
Why is that so important to you? Because this election on Aug. 7 is like no other state election in your voting lifetime. The ballot is long, and important issues will be decided.
Go to the back page of the ballot (State General section) and vote retain.
This election will determine whether three capable, experienced judges of the Tennessee Supreme Court , recommended without exception by Tennessee Performance Commission, can keep their positions and whether the Tennessee Supreme Court can remain fair and impartial (meaning: keep politics out of the court). Those judges are Chief Justice Gary Wade, Justice Connie Clark and Justice Sharon Lee.
Most of us remember there are three independent branches of government: Executive (president or governor), Legislative (representatives and senators) and Judicial (judges). Only the last branch, Judicial, was created intentionally to be non-partisan, non-political, in part to balance the other two clearly political branches. Our wise founders, both for our country and our state, knew how important it is to maintain balance in our government and to keep courts free of influence for us—the citizens who appear before the judges.
Vote Friday, vote retain early to keep Tennessee Courts fair.
Marcia Eason
Chattanooga
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Who cares whether we should replace or retain the Tennessee Supreme Court judges? We should.
While we can appreciate that Ms. Eason's plea to "retain" the current Tennessee Supreme Court judges seems innocent enough, what she fails to tell you is that all three of those judges, Connie Clark, Sharon Lee and Gary Wade, were all appointed by former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen and have been active, engaged members of the Democratic Party, generous donors to the Democratic National Committee and/or Democratic Party candidates over the years. Beyond that, they have actively solicited fundraising support from lawyers who practice before them and special interests wanting a liberal judiciary.
Heading this "retain" campaign promoted by the Democratic Party is Victoria McCullough, who has strong ties to Barack Obama and has served as the development chief for the pro-Obama Organizing for Action, the group that promotes the Democratic Party legislative and political agenda. And though it has been widely published that 12 Tennessee district attorneys support the retention of Clark, Lee, and Wade as well, all of but one of those have ties to the Democratic Party. Interestingly, George Soros and other left-wing activists also have involved themselves in the retention election here in Tennessee on the side of the justices. Even the "poll" of Tennessee attorneys rating and supporting the retention of Clark, Lee, and Wade is tainted, with some 17 percent of the attorneys across the state even bothering to respond to the poll. But that didn't stop the pro-retention groups from distorting the small response by stating "9 out of 10 attorneys support retention."
This election seems innocent enough, but it isn't.
Unlike other states, the Tennessee Supreme Court judges also elect the state attorney general. With Democrats currently making up the majority of our Supreme Court, it makes our third branch of the Tennessee state government quite liberal and an important factor in deciding who our state attorney general becomes.
As a reminder, the current State Attorney General Robert (Bob) Cooper also has Democratic Party ties and made Tennessee one of only 28 states who refused to contest ObamaCare, among other liberal rulings. Today, we know what a disaster ObamaCare has turned out to be across the nation, with insurance exchange rates rising as much as 19 percent in the period of one year, including those just announced for Tennessee.
So, is this small item on your ballot important? Yes. Can it sway the politics of this state? Yes. Can it impact the rulings of the Supreme Court of Tennessee and even the decisions of the Tennessee attorney general? You bet it does.
Now that you know what your vote on this issue really means to this state and how important the outcome is to Tennessee, go to the back page of the ballot (State General section) that lists Chief Justice Gary Wade, Justice Connie Clark and Justice Sharon Lee--and vote replace.
Mya Lane