Judge Walker Cuts and Runs

Judge Vaughn Walker, the infamous judge who overrode the votes of millions of Californians in August, announced recently that he will retire. According to a media representative for the court, Walker's retirement is just a remarkable coincidence and is completely unrelated to his ruling against Californians' right to vote. Walker joins a slew of such coincidental retirements by government officials acting against the public interest of late.

Ed Whelan notes that Walker had been set to retire last year, when he became eligible for generous pension benefits, but postponed his plans when the Prop. 8 case "fell into his lap."

Walker’s decision to retire is no surprise. Indeed, the buzz from local courtwatchers is that Walker was going to retire last year (when he first became pension-eligible) but changed his mind when the anti-Prop 8 case, through the wonders of supposedly random assignment, fell into his lap.

DVD Extra:

It's fun to read the exchange between Whelan and the agenda driven (pronounced "propagandist") Media Matters. Whelan correctly notes that Media Matters gets exactly backward what he said, claiming Whelan jumped to the "feathering the nest" conclusion when in fact Whelan specifically claims it is more likely Walker simply acted out of ideology.

Media Matters also discredits itself in the first paragraph of that article claiming Whelan thought Walker should have recused himself for identifying himself as "gay." If you follow the links in that first paragraph, Whelan actually thought Walker should have disclosed that fact to the parties, not that he necessarily should have recused himself. Self identifying as "gay" doesn't mean one wants to overthrow marriage or the vote, many if not most "gay" individuals oppose both. But given the vocal "gay activist" organizations that do want both marriage and the vote to be overthrown, a disclosure by Walker was certainly warranted. One wonders why Walker did not follow the norms of judicial conduct in this case.