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If one takes a step back and looks at the matter logically, Ohio's requirement that candidates in state supreme court races bear partisan labels is ridiculous. Add to that the decision that allowed judges to endorse political candidates and the situation is laughable.
But three former state supreme court justices weren't laughing last week when they took part in a nationwide effort to protest the politicization of judge's seats and threats to the independence of the judiciary.
Yvette McGee Brown, Michael P. Donnelly and former Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor were part of Justices in Motion, and were joined by former North Carolina Supreme Court justice Robert Orr, along with former Ohio attorneys general Nancy Rogers and Richard Cordray, and judges from across the state, according to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal.
"The founders of our nation feared the consolidation of power into the hands of any one branch or any one person, and it was the judiciary that the framers of our Constitution ... turned to, to abide by the law, to be independent, to be judges not for a party or a person, but for a Constitution and the people," Orr said.
Those who are happy with recent judicial appointments and election results, and believe the system is working just fine should consider how many demonstrated they were willing to react before the pendulum swung and those same appointments and election victories were coming by and for the other party.
If something is only OK when it is being enforced while YOUR party is in charge, it is not OK at all.
"When average citizens start to talk about judges and justices by putting them in a political tribe, it undermines who we are," Brown said, according to the Capital Journal.
It seems as though that is simple common sense, but there are plenty in the political class who are hoping we won't rely on that.
If we want the judiciary to be independent -- and, if we say we are patriots, we do -- partisan politics should have nothing to do with it.