Too many of us think that voting for a judicial candidate just because they are from the party we favor is smart. It’s not. Period.

In Harris County we’ve had great and awful folks on the bench from both parties. And it’s hard to get an elected  judge off the bench even when they are incredibly incompetent. Witness the questionable deal it took to get a bad family court judge to go away recently.

I used to help the newspaper with judicial endorsements. Because I knew so many judges and lawyers, I did what we informally called “the crazy check” after editors picked their slate. It’s hard to judge who will make a good judge. And I wasn’t surprised that sometimes the panel that met with candidates for about 30 minutes, and looked at resumes and other endorsements sometimes got it very wrong and picked a person seriously unsuited for a robe.

Voters need to know what they are doing here. A party line is a foolish vote. Be an educated voter, check the candidate websites, talk to lawyers who have been in the courts and check out the Houston Bar Association Judicial Preference poll and also maybe the Charles Kuffner judicial candidate Q and As.  If you don’t have time and would just knee-jerk pick by party, please do us all a favor and skip the judicial part of the ballot.

The best tool, but still imperfect, is that  bar poll.  It can be pretty reflective of the candidates’ actual reputation, but this year a bunch of mostly GOP judicial candidates sent out repeated political begging emails asking people to endorse them there. It was purer in years past but it’s always been skewed just by having a lawyer come from a big firm where he or she knows more fellow lawyers. Lawyers are only supposed to rate the folks they know.

When I got here 30 years ago, the benches were filled with just Democrats. Up until a few years ago, our benches were filled with just Republicans. We deserve better.

But still, I once voted for a lawyer for an appellate bench I should not have. I’d met him, he was smart and personable and knowledgeable. I voted for him. I hated many of his rulings. They were smart, just frequently not the direction I thought the court should go. Voting for judges is one of the hardest things we do as voters. It’s really hard, maybe impossible and that’s a good argument for not electing judges. But in the mean time, please don’t elect them with a party blindfold on.