Now's your chance to share info with each other in MI about your favorite local candidates. Please feel free to promote those in local races--school board, community college, and especially judicial candidates--who might not otherwise get a lot of press.
I'm in Washtenaw County, and the hottest local races right now might be those for the probate and circuit courts, each of which have one seat open in this election.
My vote for Probate Court judge goes to Tracy van Den Bergh, who is running against a newly-appointed (by Snyder) judge to that bench, Julia Owdziej. The recent incumbent is a conservative who would not have been appointed otherwise, and has been taking unfair advantage of her incumbency IMHO, with campaign lit declaring she has twenty years of public service. Misleading language, to be sure. But van Den Bergh has strong credentials in her own right, being a social worker as well as a legal aid attorney with solid experience in the relevant practice areas.
My vote for Circuit Court judge goes to Veronique Liem, over Patrick Conlin. The latter is part of a well-established, often Republican political family in the area, with several judges already. Patrick seems more than a little presumptuous, and I fear he is also a stealth right-winger, having been the campaign manager last election for an unsuccessful candidate to the same bench, a man who was openly anti-choice. This is a judge who will be able to rule for or against parental consent waivers for juvenile women seeking abortions, and it's essential to me that we have a strong pro-choice judge in that seat--which is the position much more in keeping with the county at large in any case. Liem is a personable and dedicated lawyer who has good ideas about streamlining court processes and making the whole experience more equitable for people coming before her bench.
I'll have to return to add my choices for Washtenaw Community College and a couple of other local races of note. But before I temporarily sign off, let me ask: you do all know who the (tacitly) Dem-endorsed candidates for the MI Supreme Court are, don't you? Let me refresh your memory in case you don't. Richard Bernstein, Bill Murphy, and Deborah Thomas (the last running for a partial term of two years).
All right, I'll leave the floor open to all of you for the names you want to have promoted. Good luck to our candidates!