Court Opinion

ID: 9757552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:45:56.793668+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:40.838538
License: Public Domain

Concurring opinion by
CATHELL, J.
I reluctantly concur with the result reached by the Court, based as it is on the limited issues as presented by the parties. Because they asserted that the process was intended to be nonpartisan, and they did not challenge the partisan nature of the elections themselves, their arguments necessarily fall before the finding of the Court that the election process for circuit court judges, in actuality, is partisan.
Because of the way the issues were presented, we are not able to address in this case the question of the constitutionality of partisan elections for circuit court judges. That issue, as I see it, must await another challenge. I note that, in my view, a required process lor the election of judges that de*734pends upon party affiliation, and that permits any person, whether or not affiliated with any party, to be a candidate in each party’s primary process, but then denies him or her the right to vote for themselves in the election that would place them upon the ballot in the general election, raises serious questions especially considering the provisions of Article I, section 1 of the Maryland Constitution that provides in relevant part “Every citizen ... who is a resident of the State, shall be entitled to vote ... at all elections to be held in this State.” (emphasis added). In my view, this constitutional language is absolutely clear any construing language in Hennegan v. Geartner, 186 Md. 551, 559, 47 A.2d 393, 396 (1946) to the contrary not withstanding.1 Upon proper challenge, it seems to me that this Court would be hard pressed to hold that an election (even a primary) conducted by State officials in a State facility, on ballots provided by the State, at times designated by the State, with the qualifications of the voters vis-a-vis registration created by the State — is not a State election, regardless of what party’s primary it may also be. The fact that it may be a “shared” election does not make it any less a “State Election.” If .the political parties want protection from independent voters — they should hold their own primary elections and not have the State conduct them as State elections. In my view, the Federal constitutional provisions and the cases interpreting them, are not controlling in light of Maryland’s explicit constitutional requirements for all State elections. If the parties want private primaries, let them hold their own — and pay for them as well.
*735Moreover, given the increasingly large numbers of voters who chose to refuse to identify with either of the major political parties, the current process appears, at least facially, to disfranchise a large number of voters from participating in an important step in the process. In my view within days of the issuance of the opinions in this case, interested parties will be preparing the documentation necessary to challenge the constitutionality of partisan judicial elections that are conducted in the manner such as that used in Maryland especially considering the provisions of our own Constitution.
While I agree completely with Judge Raker’s analysis for the Court that judicial elections for circuit court judges are actually partisan, that analysis conflicts with what I, and I imagine most observers of the judicial election process, had previously supposed. Moreover, I believe that the general voting populace, via the constant stream of news articles during every election cycle, heretofore have believed that the process was intended to be nonpartisan. As likely, members of the Legislature may have believed that nonpartisanship in judicial elections existed. Thus, I think, the issue of whether such elections should be partisan or nonpartisan, is a matter of public policy that should now be re-examined.
It may well be that the Legislature may want to address the issues raised by the opinions filed in this case, in order to avoid the uncertainties that will be created by future last minute, inevitable, constitutional challenges to this partisan election procedure for circuit court judges. Absent legislative actions resolving the issues, it is naive to believe that the issues are going away.

. The issue in Hennegan did not involve the election of circuit court judges, and the court there was not addressing the present situation where the State interprets the law to prohibit a candidate from voting for himself. In my view, the State does not have to regulate and conduct party primaries, but if it does it makes them State elections. In 1945, the advent of independent voters was not as pervasive as it is now. To apply the language of Hennegan to the conduct of judicial elections is no longer de minimus (a term used by the Hennegan court); it disenfranchises a substantial number of the State’s citizens from participating in what is, because of State involvement, a “State” election for important offices. If necessary I would reject that language in Hennegan.