Sex, Money And The Judicial Races -- A Summary More Than An Expose (Sorry)

The first quarter of 2008 ended March 31 and the latest campaign financial reporting is just making its way in. Today is the deadline for filing.

As anyone who is anyone knows by now, there are presently only two competative judicial contests for open seats in the Fourth Circuit. There are two uncontested open seats, one in Group 4 (Jim Daniel) and the other in Group 19 (Jeff Morrow). The remaining seats will most likely go to the incumbent as no challenger has filed in these Groups.

Adrian Soud is running against Mark Hulsey III in Group 11 while Rick Buttner is hoping to deny Virginia Norton a seat in Group 28.

As of this morning, only Norton, Hulsey and Daniel have submitted their campaign finance activity.

Norton raised $57,245.23 between January 1 and March 31, 2008 (in case you're wondering, I was the one who donated the .23 cents), lifting her coffers to $108,756.06 since October of last year. Include in this, however, the $40,000.00 loan Norton made to her campaign last year. So far, Norton has only spent $7,000.00.

As of the end of 2007, Norton's competition, Rick Buttner, had $43,500.00 in his account, $10,000.00 of which was his own loan. I'm curious to see Rick's latest numbers as he's going to have to come up with some serious cash to remain competative. Remember, Norton raised $286,000.00 to Dawn Hudson's $421,000.00 two years ago in her failed attempt to win a county court seat.

Not to be completely out done, Hulsey raised $37,350.00 from late January, when he entered the race, to the end of March. Soud, who has yet to report, currently has $63,100.00, $50,000.00 of which was a loan to the campaign. It's looking like Hulsey will either have to ramp up his fundraising or dip into his own personal account to make a loan comparable to Soud's (or both).

Back to the uncontested candidates -- Morrow and Daniel. There's nothing to report on the Morrow front as he only entered the race this year and has not yet submitted his finance activity report.

Daniel, on the other hand, has a strong monetary lead over all other candidates at this point (despite the fact that, again, HE'S RUNNING UNOPPOSED) with a whopping $162,075.00. Now, sure, $100,000.00 is a loan (equalling all other loans in these races combined). But in 2008 alone he reported $45,175.00 in contributions.

I remain at odds over Jim's strategy of pre-pricing any competition out of the race in Clay County. I've said before, he's highly qualified and respected. But I can't shake the "buying the race" appearance. Clay County deserves to choose who the best judicial candidate is, not to have the one with the most money forced upon them.

After taking an informal poll of other attorneys on this issue, most of whom didn't really see a problem with preempting a challenger, I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably stewing over nothing.

So that's the judicial race update. More to come after all the numbers are in.

Also to come will be a spotlight on the State races. We have a few Democrats who just threw their proverbial hats in the congressional ring in District 17 (Regina Young) and District 19 (Larry Jones).

There are now Democrats in every state representative race that touches on the Duval County area except for Districts 13 and 16, both of which are currently held by Republican incumbents.