No one should be surprised that the Indiana Election Commission rejected an effort to remove Allen Superior Court Judge Ken Scheibenberger from the November ballot. That was the only legally sound decision.

The commission’s vote was 4-0, with the election commission’s two Republicans and two Democrats agreeing there was no legal validity to the effort to remove the judge.

The challenge to Scheibenerger’s candidacy was based on a poorly written law. The best the Scheibenberger opponents could come up with to justify removing a sitting judge from the ballot, denying voters the opportunity to vote for or against him, was that some of the words in the law were in lower case rather than upper case. These from the same type of conservatives who castigated Bill Clinton for challenging the definition of “is.”

An attorney, Jeff Arnold, representing one of the challengers, Ric Runestad, argued that a narrow interpretation of the statute would render it meaningless because it calls for banning candidacies of anyone who has ever been sanctioned by the “supreme court disciplinary commission of Indiana.” The commission, in fact, recommends penalties, but the Indiana Supreme Court is the body that disciplines lawyers and judges. Recommendations on judges come from a different agency, the Judicial Qualifications Commission.

“If the statute is to mean something, it has to be interpreted in a fairly liberal manner,” Arnold said, a somewhat ironic statement considering the ultraconservative views of his client. Arnold asked the commission to believe that under the statute, the “supreme court disciplinary commission” also meant the Judicial Qualifications Commission.

In fact, that portion of the law probably is meaningless.

“You can’t construe it any way you want to,” said Scheibenberger attorney Robert Thompson.

He argued that lawmakers specifically decided the law was meant to cover attorneys seeking a judgeship but not sitting judges. The more likely truth is that the law is just poorly written, and the legislative intent can’t be determined.

As one of the commission members, Anthony Long, said: “I think it’s possible this statute doesn’t do anything, and that wouldn’t be the first time.”

Ultimately, the commission did not want to knock anyone off the ballot, depriving voters of a choice, unless the law clearly stated the candidate was to be excluded. This law doesn’t even come close.

Council hopeful

While most hopefuls for the 2011 city election are waiting until after November to launch their campaigns, one local woman has been using social media to promote her candidacy for the 6th District City Council. Melissa Ann Hicks says she will seek the GOP nomination for the seat, now held by Democrat Glynn Hines.

In a mailing to potential contributors, Hicks vows, among other things, “to continue to protect veterans’ benefits, to support our military troops, to demand better oversight of defense spending.”