Thursday, August 19, 1999
No challengers for county judgeships
Parties won't challenge incumbents on other side
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
When Hamilton County voters go to the polls Nov. 2, chances are they'll find their choices somewhat limited when they get to the ballot for municipal court judges.
The odds are great that they'll have no choice. It will be the incumbent or nothing.
The reason boils down to a combination of deal-making between political party leaders and the realization that some incumbents probably can't be beaten.
Seven incumbent municipal court judges — four Republicans and three Democrats — are up for election to four-year terms in 1999. Leaders of both parties don't expect anyone to challenge any of them.
“We could have, but we didn't,” said Hamilton County Democratic Party Co-chair man Tim Burke, when asked whether his party would field candidates to oppose the Republican incumbents.
Ditto for H.C. “Buck” Niehoff, the Hamilton County GOP chairman. “Barring a surprise,” he said he does not expect any incumbents to be challenged.
Technically, judicial elections in Ohio are nonpartisan; no party designation is attached to candidates' names on the ballot.
But the two political parties routinely recruit lawyers to run for judgeships and do what they can to help them get elected.
Both Mr. Niehoff and Mr. Burke acknowledge that someone without the backing of either party could show up at the Hamilton County Board of Elections by 4 p.m. today with $80 for the filing fee and the signatures of 100 registered voters on a petition in a court district and qualify as a candidate.
But they don't expect that to happen.
Mr. Niehoff said the parties have a tacit understanding that they won't challenge each other's incumbents who are African-American or women in order to encourage diversity on the 14-member municipal court.
“There is an understanding that if African-Americans or women are doing a good job on the bench, they should stay,” Mr. Niehoff said.
But only two of the seven fall into that category — William Mallory Jr. (District 1) and Cheryl Grant (District 2), both African-Americans.
Two other incumbents — Democrat Timothy Black (District 4) and Republican David Stockdale (District 3) — are getting free rides this year because of an explicit agreement between leaders of the parties that the two judges wouldn't be challenged.
Mr. Burke said both are in districts that, based on voting patterns, “could go either way.”
“Both of them are well-regarded judges and it wouldn't be worth it for either party to go after the other,” Mr. Burke said.
Republican Judges Guy Guckenberger (District 5), Ralph E. “Ted” Winkler (District 6) and Robert Taylor (District 7) are in districts so solidly Republican it would be next to impossible for a Democratic challenger to win.
Likewise, Republican candidates would have a difficult time unseating Judge Mallory or Judge Grant in overwhelmingly Democratic districts.
In 1997, Republican Party leaders were angered when Republican Kim Wilson Burke, an African-American, lost the judgeship she had been appointed to when the Democrats ran Ms. Grant against her.
The Republicans retaliated last year by running Common Pleas Judge Ralph Winkler against incumbent Democrat Marianna Brown Bettman, the only woman on the Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals. Judge Winkler won.
“Now the score is even,” Mr. Niehoff said.
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