Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Brian, who's off today. Election Day is right around the corner. You may have heard me talk about it once or twice even if it feels quieter than in recent years. We don't have any big-ticket races going on. There's no presidential or gubernatorial or mayoral elections this year, but listeners, do not sleep on your local races. While local elections often get the least amount of attention, these positions often are the ones that touch you most directly because some local contests can feel a little obscure.

I'm willing to bet some of you don't know the judicial positions up for grabs this year. On the show, we've been decoding the ballot both here in New York City and in New Jersey. We're going to continue that now by looking at the various judicial races that you may encounter, particularly competitive races occurring in Queens and Brooklyn this year. Who are the candidates? How are they picked? What are the different courts with open positions? Joining us to answer these questions and more is Rachel Holliday Smith, associate editor for THE CITY. Rachel, welcome back to WNYC.

Rachel Holliday Smith: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we may have time for a couple of questions for Rachel about the judicial candidates on your ballot. Maybe you're in one of those competitive districts. Have you been getting any mail from the candidates or are there signs of the election? Tell us about it. We'd love to hear about it, or if you have a question about why you don't hear as much about where these candidates stand on issues or who they are, give us a call.

The number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. If you can't get through on the phone, you can text that number or tweet us @BrianLehrer. Rachel, there are a total of 22 judicial races in New York, but only four of them are competitive. How did we get here? How are the candidates even chosen? Why are there so many of these races, just one candidate contests?

Rachel Holliday Smith: Yes, so this is really a situation where the borough parties, the old patronage system is still at work. Party leadership in many ways gets a real firm hand on these judge races and is able to push their candidates. It's worked that way for many, many decades. Unfortunately, that's still the case. It's not the same thing that people are used to where there are many candidates who run in a primary and they choose the one they want, and then it goes to the November general election. It works a bit differently. The two races that people will see on their ballot are civil court judges and Supreme Court judges.

Civil court judges do have primaries, but Supreme Court judges don't. They're actually chosen by county party leaders through a judicial convention, which will really get in the weeds if we just talk about that, which is where party leadership votes to choose their nominees for those positions. There's very little competition and there's usually a short list that flies through and gets rubber-stamped. That's a lot of the reason why we've got these folks on the ballot. We've written a lot about that system and how that's worked over the years.

Brigid Bergin: Rachel, if so many of these judicial races are basically preordained, why do you think it's important for our listeners to take time out of their busy schedules to vote on Tuesday?

Rachel Holliday Smith: As you said, at the top, there are competitive races. If you're in Queens or Brooklyn, you will have a choice on your ballot. Is it a great choice? I can't say. There are more candidates on the ballot than spots, so there is technically competition. I'll say that these court positions are a big deal and have a lot of sway over people's lives. They're long-term. Civil court judges hold 10-year terms. On the Supreme Court side, they're 14-year terms. In civil court, they're presiding over financial disputes under $50,000.

They're making decisions about custody rights, evictions, disputes, and felony cases. Then the Supreme Court, they're dealing with even higher dollar civil matters, so things above $50,000. There's a lot of life-changing cases that these judges preside over. If you are affected by one of these cases, you really care who's on the bench. Even though people may pay more attention to maybe a close city council race or, certainly, they're more involved when it's not an off-year election, meaning for mayor or governor, these cases do matter.

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely. One of the races that isn't competitive but is of interest is the race for surrogate court judge in Brooklyn. What is surrogate court and how does this position touch the lives of everyday Brooklynites?

Rachel Holliday Smith: Surrogate court is the place where wills and estates are settled. If you have a dispute over a will in your family, the surrogate court is going to handle that. They also dispose of property that doesn't have an heir. They have a lot of power over property and value that is not being claimed by someone, so there's just a lot of wealth going through that court and they hold a lot of power. It matters a lot if you're dealing with end-of-life estate issues.

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely. Since there is only one candidate on the ballot, I think we will potentially know who the winner of that race is very soon the moment you look at your ballot. You started to break down what some of these different judicial positions are and the kind of cases they handled, but let's tease it out a little bit more. Let's talk more specifically about the civil court positions and how a civil court judge, the types of cases they handle versus the state supreme court, if you could just differentiate the two.

Rachel Holliday Smith: People may remember a couple of years ago. It actually may have been last year or the year before. I can't remember. When people had a ballot measure to change the amount that was made, that basically was the prerequisite amount of value in a case that the Supreme Court would handle, so it was recently up to $50,000. Anything that is under $50,000, which is still quite a lot of money, is handled by the civil court.

Brigid Bergin: I think it was last year.

Rachel Holliday Smith: It was last year, okay. Then in the Supreme Court, it's over $50,000. I also will say that why the civil court matters quite a lot is that it's very common that the Office of Court Administration, which is the overarching agency that kind of runs the court, they often transfer civil court judges to other courts. They get elected and then they'll get transferred to another court. That can include family court, criminal court, or they could be an acting Supreme Court justice.

That is also a big part of the job and can have a big effect in other types of courts as well. This is, again, why civil court judges really matter because they end up in these positions of power that have a lot of sway over people's lives. They could get involved with housing cases, so deciding who gets evicted and how landlords have to treat tenants. They could be dealing with criminal matters or family matters, ACS cases, custody of children, which are incredibly important. It's a long list of things that they are responsible for.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. Let's look at some of these competitive races. First, we have a Queens countywide race for civil court justice. Who is on the ballot there?

Rachel Holliday Smith: Yes, so there's one Democrat and one Republican. It is Sandra Pérez, who is a Democrat, and Sharmela Bachu, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, who is a Republican. As you said, it's a countywide position. Every Queens voter who wants to vote can choose one candidate on their ballot. Some of the other races are through judicial districts or municipal court districts, which we'll get into, I'm sure. This is the race that every voter will see on their ballot. Both women are experienced attorneys. Hold on just a moment. Bachu, who's the Republican, has a practice in Kew Gardens and has been an attorney for many years. Pérez is a former prosecutor and ADA in Queens. That's who's on the ballot there and people can make a decision.

Brigid Bergin: As you described, you talked about their qualifications. One of the interesting things about these judicial candidates, of course, is they're not exactly campaigning on issues. They're not trying to sway voters by trying to tell them how they would rule on certain matters. In fact, they're not allowed to do that, right, Rachel?

Rachel Holliday Smith: Yes, exactly. It's a weird thing because they're supposed to be non-partisan on issues, and yet they run through parties, which is incongruous. They do campaign, but not to say, "Oh, I support the Republican platform," or "I support Roe v. Wade," or what may have you. They just say, "This is my experience. This is what I've done in the community. These are the political clubs who have endorsed me." You may see them show up at community board meetings, school meetings. They do campaign, but in this odd way where they're not saying exactly how they feel about the political issues of the day.

Brigid Bergin: To your point that they are running on these party lines, that's also in part because they are often creatures of their parties, right?

Rachel Holliday Smith: Yes, and we've written about this a lot. Many times, they have really close connections with the party leadership in a given borough. Sometimes they themselves, over the years, have gone out to campaign for candidates who have been supported by the party apparatus. We've also written about how they traditionally give quite a lot of money to the party and the party leadership.

They are often known to pay dues with time and money to the party leadership so that, down the line, the hope is that the party will turn around and support them when they want to become a judge. That's how it often happens. I should say that the party leadership has said in the past that this is a way to vet people and make sure that they are civically engaged and that they know the system and that they have a true interest and they have put in the work. Of course, the other side says that judges should not be chosen this way and that there's just--

Brigid Bergin: The last bastion of patronage. [chuckles] I will also note that the New York City Bar Association also does an evaluation of the candidates based on their qualifications. As folks are looking for ways to evaluate candidates, that is one more spot to look. We're going to bring in a caller. Let's go to Julie in Beacon, New York. Julie, thanks for calling WNYC.

Julie: Hi, thanks for having me. I am in Beacon, New York, but I'm with an organization called Eleanor's Legacy, which is a statewide organization that works to recruit and support pro-choice Democratic women running for election at state and local level. I just want to say, I know the ballot can be confusing with those Supreme Court candidates at the first few races that you're voting on, but local elections matter so much.

We really need to count on voters to turn out every year, not just in presidential years. Even when there are uncontested races quite locally to you or in these Supreme Court situations, there are candidates running at the county level for legislature. There are two important ballot measures that voters need to weigh in on across the state regarding small city school districts and sewage. I know these are not exciting topics, but they are really impactful on people's everyday lives.

We really ask that people turn out to vote every year in these local races, in school board races, in library races. We just have to get in the habit of voting every year and doing our best to make sure that our voices are heard at the ballot box. Too often where I live up in Dutchess County, our last local election cycle, we had 34% Democratic turnout, 42% Republican turnout, and 44% conservative turnout. This really impacts our ability to elect people at the local level who will then be able to serve at a higher office later down the line.

Brigid Bergin: Julie, thank you. I'm going to--

Julie: We're still working on building a bench.

Brigid Bergin: Julie, thank you so much for your call. We appreciate your pitch for voting for all voters. It's certainly something that we have been talking about here on WNYC throughout this election cycle. I know that it's something that Rachel and her colleagues over at THE CITY are reporting on frequently, but we can never say it often enough. Let's go to Amy in Manhattan. Amy, thanks for calling WNYC.

Amy: Yes, thank you. I don't often vote in judicial elections because I find that it's really hard to find information about the candidates. They usually don't campaign the way candidates for legislative or executive offices do.

Brigid Bergin: That's a challenge.

Amy: Yes, I think I've only voted for judges three times. It was because I've been on jury duty in the judge's courtroom and he was running for reelection. I was impressed with the way he ran the courtroom. Once, it was somebody I knew and thought he would be a good judge. The third time, there was some information about his experience. It included working for an organization with a cause that I was in favor of.

Brigid Bergin: Amy, thank you so much for that call. Very quickly, let me just say, this is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. This is New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming @wnyc.org. Rachel, I think Amy raises a concern that is something that we have been trying to assist within our voter guides in our coverage of these issues, which is how to help voters understand who these candidates are or more, what positions they are running for.

I will note that at our website, gothamist.com, we have a rolling explainer of issues that you might have questions about for the upcoming election. In that explainer, yes, you do have an election. There is a link to the New York City Bar Association and those reviews that they have that approve or disapprove of candidates. I know that a lot of the information on your website is available. Any response to Amy, Rachel, about how do you go about finding information, what kind of information you might be looking for to evaluate these judicial candidates?

Rachel Holliday Smith: Yes, I understand her concern. My advice is very simple and maybe seem obvious. First of all, find the names of the people on the ballot. Go to the Board of Elections website and type in your address on their poll site finder. You can get a sample ballot and actually just see who's on there, first of all, and then I just google the names. I think a really low bar, but just to check that somebody is a halfway serious candidate is just to see if you can find anything about them.

Maybe they don't have a campaign website, but they have a Facebook page that's pretty active. They say a little bit about themselves. Maybe you'll find some write-ups from local political clubs that have endorsed them or said why they endorsed them. You don't know what you'll find. Maybe you'll find some local news coverage of them. I think that's a good place to start.

Yes, you can come to thecity.nyc, our newsroom's website. We've got some voter roundups as well. I will say, I'll give a shout-out to David Cruz at the Daily News now, but formerly a WNYC person who did a great roundup of all the biographical information you could find about these candidates on the Daily News website. It is tough. These folks sometimes don't want to be known to the wider world. Sometimes they are running for the first time and don't really know how to run a campaign.

Like we've talked about before, these campaigns are somewhat different. They are quite different than regular political campaigns in that these folks are not trying to make it known what they truly believe. It's this counterintuitive thing. Yes, get your sample ballot. Make sure you know the names that are on that ballot and then google around and see what you find and see if it makes any difference to you.

Brigid Bergin: I will note that that roundup that the Daily News did is also available at the New York City Bar Association's website under their media section. If you can't find it directly by googling the Daily News website, you can find it over at the New York City Bar Association's website. Rachel, while we have you in a couple of more minutes, just tell us, what are those other competitive judicial contests that people might see on their ballot? Where are they?

Rachel Holliday Smith: Sure. We talked about the countywide Queens race, but there are two other Queens races. One on the 11th judicial district for the Supreme Court. There are six candidates, but voters can choose five. There's like a little bit of competition there. Not much, but there are four people running on the Democratic line. I'm sorry, five. Two who are running on the Republican line. If that math does not make sense, it's because one person is running on the Democratic and Republican line.

Then we also have a civil court election for a judge of the civil court in the sixth municipal court district in Queens. If people are scratching their heads wondering what the heck a municipal court district is or a judicial district, there's not a great answer other than they are very old relics of when we had political wards and they drew judicial districts and they're still with us today. Again, check your ballot to make sure you know which district you're in.

Then in Brooklyn, there is one Supreme Court race in the second judicial district. That race has, I'm counting them now, seven candidates. Many of them are on multiple ballot lines, including the conservative party. The reason that this happens is because the way that the rules are in New York, you are allowed to run on multiple lines in the general election. For judge races, people do because sometimes there's not competition from the minority parties, so people run on all three. You've got seven candidates there and six spots for that race in Brooklyn.

Brigid Bergin: Did we cover the Supreme Court justice race in the second district in Brooklyn?

Rachel Holliday Smith: Yes, that's the one I just-- Yes, so the Supreme Court in the second judicial district in Brooklyn and that's the one with seven candidates who are basically all running on multiple lines.

Brigid Bergin: A lot of candidates, a lot of races, a lot of work potentially for voters who want to discern the differences between them, but plenty of time. Election Day is not till Tuesday, or you could early vote between now and then. Rest assured, you can go into that poll site prepared. All you need to do is read the great reporting of my guest, Rachel Holliday Smith, at thecity.com. She's an associate editor there. You can also go to gothamist.com and read some of what we have been providing on the election or you can also go to the New York City Bar Association or the New York Daily News and find some more information. Rachel, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I really appreciate it.

Rachel Holliday Smith: You're welcome and I'll just make one correction. We're at thecity.nyc. Just got to get that in there.

Brigid Bergin: Oh, yes. Thank you. I apologize for that.

Rachel Holliday Smith: It's okay, thecity.nyc. Thank you very much for having me. Always happy to talk about elections.

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