Comments on: Is there a Rider benefit to judicial selection?

By: Reader

Reader — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:46:17 +0000

Good catch on Halbrooks. I think that story (former law firm Rider Bennett and its grooming of future female Minnesota judges), with additional credit for producing Governor Pawlenty and now Supreme Court Justice Eric Magnuson, would make a more interesting story.

By: Mark Cohen

Mark Cohen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:03:18 +0000

Or, for that matter, Court of Appeals Judge Jill Flaskamp Halbrooks (Rider bennett alum appointed by Arne Carlson in 1998). Not 100 percent sure what you’re driving at here though. Are you saying there is something special about the women of Rider?

Pawlenty, Ventura (and for that matter Carlson) have, as far as I have heard, done a pretty good job in reaching across gender lines in their bench appointments.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of presidential appointments to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Only one woman has been appointed to that court in its entire history. A local group, called the Infinity Project, is lobbying to improve the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals’ gender balance.

By: Reader

Reader — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:18:54 +0000

More interesting than the Rider Bennett connection to recent judicial appointments are their gender-bending significance. In the past 12 years, at least 4 female fRider Bennett alums were awarded with judicial posts: Martha Simonett (Dakota County), Mary Pawlenty (former Dakota County), Louise Dovre Bjorkman (former Ramsey County, now Minnesota Court of Appeals) and Karen Janisch (Hennepin County).

By: Mark Cohen

Mark Cohen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:59:34 +0000

Thanks. That’s absolutely correct. Immediately after taking office in January 2003 (may have even been the same day) Pawlenty appointed Sheryl Ramstad to the Tax Court (and this week reappointed her to another six-year term.) So, with the recent appointment of Karen Janisch, that makes six Rider Bennett alums who have secured bench appointments in the Pawlenty administration.

By: reader

reader — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:51:32 +0000

Don’t forget Sheryl Ramstad as a Rider alum as his first judicial appointment and now reappointment.

By: Mark Cohen

Mark Cohen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:08:53 +0000

I can assure you I have a no nostalgia for the Ventura Administration — other than missing the blog fodder it would have provided. That said, there’s nothing wrong with recognizing it for the thing it did right — judicial selection. I think too often in politics we mindlessly criticize everything a leader or administration does just because we don’t particularly approve of or agree with that leader or administration.

I think it would be hard if not impossible to make a serious argument charging Ventura with the practice of appointing his friends or political allies to the bench. Now his appointment to the U.S. Senate, that was a different matter entirely …

As for the Koch line, I have heard a similar quip was made periodically about Punch, the satiric (now defunct) British humor magazine during its impressive 150-year run. The line was, “Punch is not as funny as it used to be — but then again it never was.”

By: Reader

Reader — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:57:23 +0000

The claims about the dispassion of the Ventura Administration’s judicial appointments, in comparison with other Administrations, seems a bit overstated.

In what Administration would the President of the state’s fourth-largest law firm, (Hanson of Briggs & Morgan) not have been a serious contender for a judicial post?

Similarly, should readers believe that Ed McMahon and the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Prize Patrol went up to David Minge (a former 4-term Member of Congress) or Helen Meyer (a former member of Ventura’s Commission on Judicial Selection), balloons in hand, with the happy news that they had been picked by Governor Ventura from thousands of postcard entries? That seems a stretch too. The appointments were drawn from prominent and well known people in the community; as always.

Ed Koch used to tell the story of the time that he was approached by a Staten Island woman who urged him to “bring back New York to the way that it was.” “I’ll try,” Koch replied, “but I don’t think that it ever was the way that you remember….”

So, being nostalgic for a prior Administration is okay; but be sure to remember things clearly.