The easy way vs. the hard way

The lawyers of Portland got a familiar e-mail message last week. A circuit court judge in Multnomah County, Leslie Bottomly, is retiring (at least, from being a judge). That news made me pause for a moment of reflection. Judge Bottomly is a former student of mine. When your students are retiring, maybe you should think about it, too. Or are overdue to have done so.

Anyway, because Bottomly's leaving early, the governor gets to name a successor. Then that person gets to run as an incumbent at the next election. Which is how Bottomly ascended to the bench 10 years ago. She ran unopposed twice. She could have stayed on through 2028 without another election.

The Guv has invited attorneys to apply for the job. You send in your stuff and wait for the phone to ring. Some prior runs through the process are shown here.

That's one way to get to get to wear a black robe. The other is to run for election as a newcomer, either for a vacant seat, which happens sometimes, or as a challenger to a sitting judge, which is pretty unusual. This time around we've got both types of newbie campaigns. My picks for the four contested seats on the Multnomah County bench are here.

When you run for office in these parts, including for judge, it's part of the deal that you send out election porn in the mail. Two more of these came in to Blog Central the past few days. The one guy's showing off his dog, and his endorsers. "Here's who I will throw bones to." It's not pretty.

For better or worse, ballots are due a week from tomorrow.