Bench party

Ensure that a certain Republican is re-elected to the state Supreme Court and a certain lawsuit will be decided the "right" way -- that is, the way Republicans would prefer, state Court of Appeals Judge Doug McCullough suggested to a gathering of the GOP faithful last month.

That sounds partisan because it is. It sounds like something that shouldn't come from the mouth of a judge, because it gives the appearance that judicial minds are made up before the facts are in and based on what's good for the party. Forget about the law.

That's not how legal controversies are supposed to be settled in North Carolina. Yet that was the essence of McCullough's pitch to Republicans in Haywood County. He had a right to say it -- the U.S. Supreme Court has eased state restrictions on judges' speech. So a complaint lodged with the N.C. Judicial Standards Commission didn't result in McCullough being disciplined. Still, considering the implications, it was an outrageous position for him to take.

Specifically, McCullough urged the Haywood gathering to support the re-election of Bob Edmunds to the state Supreme Court. His reasoning: the high court would decide any lawsuit opposing redistricting plans drawn up by the legislature, which is dominated by Democrats. He implied that having Edmunds on board would help defend the party's interests.

Certainly there has been partisan excess in drawing the state's voting districts. But McCullough's apparent solution -- count on a judge to make a partisan ruling -- represents an unacceptable plunge into judicial activism. The bright spot is that Edmunds disavowed McCullough's comments, asserting his impartiality.

Perhaps this was simply a case of serving up red meat to the GOP base, since McCullough himself is running for re-election. His speech, however, follows a trend -- in both rhetoric and fund-raising -- of making nonpartisan judicial races party-driven. McCullough's remarks, brief as they were, trampled the clear intent of the legislature when it sought to take statewide judicial races out of the partisan riptides by having candidates run without party labels. And they did little for voters' faith in evenhanded courts.