More On The Fourth Circuit Judicial Races, Sunglasses Required

I want to post a quick update on the Fourth Circuit Judicial races. Now, I know I said before that these aren’t sexy races, but that doesn’t mean the competitive ones should be ignored.

Right now it looks like only Groups 11 and 28 are competitive. Groups, 5, 13 and 14 look secure with the incumbents going unchallenged. Jeff Morrow is throwing his hat into the ring again as the only one running for Group 19. Jim Daniel, to be discussed more below, is also going it alone in Group 4.

As it turns out, despite a much earlier post, Adrian Soud does have some competition in Group 11. Mark Hulsey III filed his papers on January 22, 2008 while Gerald Wilkerson filed his on January 17, 2008. Neither Hulsey nor Wilkerson are showing any campaign contributions to date while Soud is showing a $50,000.00 loan he made to his own campaign and another $13,100.00 in contributions from entities either beginning or ending in Soud, the Farah brothers and a few other individuals and organizations. This should be a good one to watch.

Virginia Norton, a seasoned judicial campaigner, is going up against Frederic “doesn’t my last name also sound familiar, Adrian” Buttner, the third, in Group 28. (Go to http://clayclerk.com/judicial_list.htm to see why this name is familiar.)

Now, as for Jim Daniel, I think Clay County has a good opportunity to seat a seasoned and reasonable jurist. I don’t have much to say about him individually other than he’s been practicing about 15 years and has always come across as an amiable, easygoing, and honest adversary. One look at the names attached to his fundraiser this month shows he plays nice and gets along well with others. For example, while many supporters are from the plaintiff’s bar (he is a partner at Coker Myers, after all) he also has the support of insurance defense attorneys (Steve and Jeri O’Hara, for example) and two former mayors of (technically) opposite political persuasions (John Delaney and Tommy Hazouri). Nat Glover, Rick Mullaney and Senator Jim King also make the "Vote For Jim" list.

The qualifying deadline for these races is April 28 – May 2, 2008 so much could change in the competition category. As always, I’ll try to stay on top of this.