LETTER: Letting voters pick judges, create districts is ‘least worst’ option

To Ozaukee Press:

Usually the least worst option is better than the most worst. This is again true in the piece by Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the Wisconsin League of Women Voters, in last week's Ozaukee Press.

As for the question of how to create legislative districts, or similarly how to emplace judges, the answer seems to boil down to either: Let the people decide through their legislators or directly through their vote or let some panel of “experts” decide.

Unfortunately, both options have problems, but the more worst option has logical flaws. It’s been tried in Wisconsin and has failed. I’m referring to the former Government Accountability Board.

As you may recall, the GAB was disbanded and functionally replaced after Scott Walker took office due to so-called partisanship on a supposedly unbiased board. The GAB had an executive director and board of directors made up of retired judges.

The least worst option has logical flaws too, the worst of which is that voters can be easily swayed by partisanship rather than deciding on merit.

So it comes down to this: Who has my best interest at heart — the “experts” or the voters? Neither appears perfect, but I come down on the side of the voters.

And yes, the Republicans seem to have built an advantage (whether gerrymandered or not), but then again the Democrats can do the same. With politics, if the winning side screws up too badly, they get tossed out and the other side takes over, which is exactly what happened eight years ago.

Tom McHugh
Grafton