Partisanship trumps qualifications and experience

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The local Republican Party, to fill the seat vacated by Republican Betty Garner, opened up a public process where all interested Republicans were encouraged to file an application indicating that they were interested in the appointment.

They set a schedule for reviewing the applications, and after a fair, open and deliberative process, made the decision to recommend a candidate, Kevin Wedding, with eight years of experience as a judge on the court.

Meanwhile, and quite secretly, the Democratic Party plotted in secret to fill the vacancy. Unbeknownst to anyone but themselves, using a secret process that did not appear to take qualifications into account, they forwarded two names, neither of whom had so much as run for the position.

So here is what we have learned:

The local Democratic Party and Gov. Martin O'Malley treat a local judgeship as a political patronage position. Appointing the most qualified person to make decisions about the administration of the wills, estates and inheritances of local families is nowhere near as important as making sure the appointee is a "yellow dog" Democrat, because "to the victor go the spoils." So much for the new politics.

Local Democrats can't be expected to adhere to the same standards of fairness as local Republicans, who four years ago did not intervene to name a Republican in a similar situation after a Democrat stepped down from the court.

Sen. Mac Middleton, who could have stopped this whole sordid affair at any point, refused to do so. Curiously, he did not demand that any African-American candidates be on the list provided by local Democrats, as he did for the circuit court judgeship that is currently vacant.

Of course, questions remain. Why didn't Sen. Middleton simply stop the back-room political power grab? If he wasn't going to stop it, why didn't he drag it into the open and insist that Democrats follow the same open process the GOP used? If he wasn't going to insist on an open process, shouldn't he have insisted on African-American nominees for this position, as he rightly had for other judgeships? And lastly, since the best-qualified candidate was a Republican, and his appointment would have been consistent with local political tradition, was Sen. Middleton signaling that partisanship trumps qualification and experience?

Most importantly, citizens of Charles County need to know that their elected officials, from governor to state senator to central committee, conduct their business in a manner that is fair, respectful, open and inclusive.

The Republicans met this test. The Democrats failed miserably on all counts.

Charles Lollar, Newburg

The writer is chairman of the Charles County Republican Central Committee.