This editorial, rightly, takes the Livingston County republican party to task for their arrogant and disgraceful questionnaire it planned to use to endorse judges. Basically, getting the endorsement comes down to who gave the most money to republican candidates. This says all you need to know about the current state of the republican party.
Does anyone need any more evidence of the dangers of letting one party control everything for so long?
We need a change in the county and in Lansing; let's start with Mike McGonegal.


Let's be clear on one point. The Livingston County Republicans can endorse any candidate they like, in any race and for any reason.

That said, it's still easy to be uneasy about the increasingly political flavor that many local Republicans insist on adding to local judicial races.

The questions mailed by the local party last week to judicial candidates ranged from innocuous to puzzling to offensive. The survey, for instance, asked for a detailed list of contributions that judicial hopefuls have made to Republican candidates for the state House, state Senate and Congress. Even Bill Rogers, chair of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners and an avid Republican, found that question "tacky" and "inappropriate."
Candidates were also asked what type of person they voted for in past elections. To be helpful, it was a multiple-choice question. Suggested answers lumped Democrats in with communists, socialists and racists. Maybe there wasn't enough room on the page to include pedophiles.
When our newspaper started asking about the survey, party leaders pulled back the questionnaire and said candidates shouldn't respond to it until it can be reviewed and, perhaps, restated.
Even that response was tepid and confusing. Party leaders said they sympathized with the reasoning behind the questions, but said the special endorsement committee should have gotten the survey approved by the local party's executive committee.
But at least one member of the executive committee, Don Wholihan, says he is fine with whatever questions the endorsement committee sent out. In his blog this week, Wholihan also suggests that the questions were well vetted by members of the local party.
If the county Republican Party wants to take a position that it will only vote for judicial candidates who pass a political litmus test, that's its prerogative.
But Republican concerns about "judicial activists" ring hollow if they demand that a candidate for the bench prove his or her political purity.
The best defense that the party can make for these questions is that some candidates want to present themselves as Republicans in order to curry favor in this predominantly Republican county. The party just wants to make sure its posture is real and not one of convenience.
While the party may want to side with proven Republicans, voters should look for a broader range of qualifications. A person's demeanor, legal knowledge, work habits and judgment are far more important for a judge than the size of the check he or she wrote for the local state House race.
We offer one more word of caution for voters. If a candidate touts his politics rather than his qualifications, that may say something about his qualifications.