A Reagan judge joins the resistance
The repudiation voters handed Donald Trump last week was larger than New York City and more sweeping than Democrats’ wins in Virginia and New Jersey. NPR ran down some less high-profile wins:
In Georgia, Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson will be the newest members of the state’s five-person public utility regulator after earning roughly 60% of the vote. It’s the first time Democrats have won a nonfederal statewide office there since 2006 and one where soaring energy costs and displeasure with incumbents dominated the race.
Pennsylvania voters chose to retain three state Supreme Court judges that were first elected as Democrats after millions of dollars in outside spending driven by conservative billionaire Jeff Yass‘ efforts to reshape the state court’s politics. Democrats also won special elections for a seat on Pennsylvania’s Superior Court and a seat on its Commonwealth Court.
Also in Pennsylvania, Democrats swept the top “row offices” in the purple-hued Bucks County, electing the county’s first-ever Democratic district attorney and defeating an incumbent Republican sheriff a year after Trump narrowly won there. Democrats similarly notched commanding victories in county executive races in Erie, Lehigh and Northampton counties, all bellwether counties in recent presidential elections.
At the state legislative level, Mississippi Democrats have broken a GOP supermajority in the state Senate after flipping two seats in that chamber plus another pickup in the state House. A federal court ordered lawmakers to redraw 14 total House and Senate districts after finding the maps drawn in 2022 discriminated against Black voters.
Democrats have also vastly expanded their control of the Virginia House of Delegates and in New Jersey’s General Assembly, the party gained a supermajority.
But the wins were deeper still. Democrats across North Carolina, for example, swept municipal races from Wilmington to Raleigh to Charlotte to Asheville. State chair Anderson Clayton told an interviewer that Democrats flipped over 150 seats on Tuesday. Those are not simply wins for 2025 but build Democrats’ bench of the future.
Further evidence that the resistance to Trumpism is growing comes from a retired senior United States district judge in Massachusetts. Reagan-appointed Mark Wolf explains he is leaving “that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved” (The Atlantic, gift link):
My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.
Wolf lays out some personal history in the job as well as Trumpish sins against the rule of law that will be familiar to Hullabaloo readers. He then summarizes his plans for the near future:
Others who have held positions of authority, including former federal judges and ambassadors, have been opposing this government’s efforts to undermine the principled, impartial administration of justice and distort the free and fair functioning of American democracy. They have urged me to work with them. As much as I have treasured being a judge, I can now think of nothing more important than joining them, and doing everything in my power to combat today’s existential threat to democracy and the rule of law.
Will he make a difference? He’s unsure, but has to try:
I cannot be confident that I will make a difference. I am reminded, however, of what Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” Enough of these ripples can become a tidal wave.
Start splashing every chance you get.
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