TV spot fibbery: Amendment 2 ‘protects our right to vote for judges’

An establishment bid in Tennessee to beef up the powers of the executive and legislative branches of government is filled with clever dissimulation. For one, TV spots and fliers say voting for Amendment 2 “protects our right to vote for judges.” It protects our right to vote in Soviet-style retention election for judges after a jurist has served eight years in office. No one would be happy to vote for President Obama or a state senator after eight years in office. Yet this amendment intends us to do just that. It secures a glittery plastic right (retention elections) while asking us to give up a genuine diamond right (that of election of judges, a right secured in a state constitutional provision that is being illegally ignored). 30 seconds.