Rick Beggs: Welcome to the Compass with Debbie and I

>> Rick Beggs: Welcome to the Compass, navigating the public square together with faith, truth and conviction. Well, we are so glad you have chosen to join Debbie and I today. My name is Rick Beggs, and I'm a co host with Debbie what now, President of iVoterGuide. Debbie. Say hey.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Hey, guys. We're so glad to be back with you and, starting a new topic today or continuing an old topic, right, Rick?

iVoterGuide focuses on helping Americans vote wisely in all elections

>> Rick Beggs: Well, we're kind of. We've really dribbled this one out. We started with our questionnaire, but we realized through three episodes we really needed to treat judges differently and school board members differently. So, the three. First three, the last three episodes we have done have truly been about the questionnaire and why we do it. Now we're going to move on to specifics. I think we got that right. Do we?

>> Debbie Wuthnow: I think we did. Well, we talked about, you know, voters like to see the questionnaire. They want to see those questionnaire answers. But it really is, I hate to say it, but it is kind of the least important thing that we look at, because it's more action, it's more rhetoric and less action. We'd rather look at, you know, vote records or campaign finance or things like that that really tell us what, what a candidate's going to do under fire. you know, they know what we want to hear on a questionnaire, but, you know, we still do want to ask them a questionnaire. And it really becomes interesting with judges because, you know, when we first started covering judges, they didn't want to answer a questionnaire. judges would tell us.

>> Rick Beggs: I wouldn't think so.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah, yeah, I'll take the fifth. I might have to rule on that. So, you know, in jurisprudence or whatever legal language they would use, they wouldn't answer the questionnaire. So our questionnaire is very different for judges for that reason.

>> Rick Beggs: Well, and if you have stumbled upon us as a show, I just wanted to remind our listeners that this is the official, radio broadcast for ivoterguide.com iVoterGuide is the largest, voter guide in the United States. And what is our goal Debbie?

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Our goal is to equip everybody to vote wisely because, we are grounded in God, rooted in research, just digging for the truth about the candidates and giving personalized voter guides to every address in America.

>> Rick Beggs: And if you go back all the way to the beginning of our show, which really hasn't been that long ago, we really sort of described what iVoterGuide is. But our really, our goal is to help create good Citizens.

>> Rick Beggs: And especially as Christians, why that's important, why, why it's important to God and then why we, we really need to carry it out not just on big elections, but on all elections all the way down the ballot.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, and not just elections, every area of the public square. So. But our real main lane is equipping Americans to be good, good stewards of their citizenship, which requires you vote not just every four years in November, but in the primary elections and the special elections and especially in those down ballot school board elections.

>> Rick Beggs: If you've never been with us before, you can find IiVoterGuide at ivoterguide.com and when you go there, you can find out a lot more about us. But if you really want your own personal ballot, all you have to do is put your address in there and up will pop your ballot. that was created just for you and where you live with your potentially elected officials staring right at you. Where we do a deep dive on each one of those. But today we're going to talk about judges.

Voter guide uses questionnaire to help voters identify potential judges

Yep. And we, we've titled this Judging the Judges, which is kind of, kind of fun. But it really comes down to what you said, Debbie. They have to answer the questionnaire for us to at least hear their voice a little bit. besides what they've already done sitting in a court.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, and you know, not all of them have been a judge before, depending upon what they're running for. So we just I'm trying to think. The last one, we started doing judges, it was about in 2022, 2021. And we at the time had a, just, you know, a state lead researcher who was, had visions of going to law school. And she was just, she was passionate about the law, really a disciple of Anton Scalia. And we, we threw out the idea of would you want to help us evaluate judges? And it was like sparks came out of her eyes and smoke came out of her ears. She was so excited to figure out how we would go about looking at judges because it's just different than legislators. So she started, you know, interviewing lawyers in their state and asking them what they've done. What we, what we do now is we will, if they've ever served as a judge, we will. we have, we have a lawyer and a paralegal who read their rulings. So they're looking at the language that they're writing in their opinions, they're looking at maybe even speeches they've given. in addition to our questionnaire, we're looking at you Know, have you ever been maybe a law professor? And what did you teach? we're looking at just every little tiny data bit that we can find. Because, you know, personally, the voting for judges and school board is the, is the most difficult thing on my ballot. And it is the thing we get most requested of. Can you cover more judges? Can you cover or more school boards? They just people. The average voter doesn't know what to look for because, you know, a lot of sometimes judges are just up for retention. They don't even run a campaign. There's not any information out there about them and you know, what they stand for or what they've done.

>> Rick Beggs: There's no dnr. You can't make a political, judgment about them as well.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Dnr. Do not resuscitate. No, I'm serious. What's dnr?

>> Rick Beggs: Oh, Democrat, Republican. Oh, you know what, you're so used to have an elephant and a donkey because you need word pictures and I

>> Debbie Wuthnow: totally get a D or an R, not a dnr. Okay, got it. No, because, D or an R. No, that's helpful. And in some states they run partisan, sometimes they run non partisan. There's a whole bunch of different ways that judges will appear on your ballot. And so I voter guide has started to cover the judges at the statewide level. So this would be your state Supreme Court, could be state Court of Criminal Appeals. might be different names in different states. And you know, I think there's about, at least 30 states that the judges end up at the statewide judges end up on the ballot. Some states they run with a D or an R, not a dnr, but either as a Democrat or Republican. And in that case, you know, they'll have a primary election and they have to campaign so it's easier to find the information, on those candidates because they have to run. in some states, I know Oklahoma off the top of my head. I think Kansas, probably many others, the governor will get a short list of people to nominate for the Supreme Court and a point, usually a panel of lawyers or something like that will recommend. So then they serve for six years and then they get put on the ballot for retention. I think that happens in Arizona and several other states. So they just appear as one name on your ballot and you're basically saying keep them or don't keep them. But you're like, what do I know about these people? Right? So almost always they're retained. so that's why we started researching all of that.

>> Rick Beggs: Well, I, you know, in all Honesty. There was a time in my life before I voter guide or any personal research or going to my, you know, my confidant at the church who, you know, knew everything about it.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: You had your, you had your friend, right?

>> Rick Beggs: That's right. Everybody has that friend, usually in the church or your neighbor. But I would get to judges and I go, I don't know anything here. I, I just. No boat. I'm just gonna leave it blank. I, I did that with, with, you know, school board races as well. This is years ago.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah.

>> Rick Beggs: But I'm just being, honest because I know there' people out there. That's what they do. maybe I know everything federally. Maybe I know a little bit about my state judges, not so much. But as we always talk about, why are judges so important for us to make sure that we're voting on it? What is that? How does it affect our future?

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, I, I would, I mean, you probably have thoughts too, but I would start by saying, you know, everybody focuses on what happens at the Supreme Court, which SCOTUS, they only hear less than 100 cases. I think every year, state supreme courts hear hundreds of cases, maybe thousands of cases, and a lot of cases never make it beyond that. So that is the final say that will happen, on, on legislation. Many states have voter ID or do not because of what's happened at their, their Supreme Court. A lot of these redistricting battles, they ended in the Supreme Court. Pro life issues or pro abortion issues frequently end at the Supreme Court. And in fact, when Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme U.S. supreme Court, it basically has now landed in the state. So the people and the, the, the judicial philosophy of the judges on your state Supreme Court really impact you more so than the U.S. supreme Court.

Debbie Ship: The questionnaire is different for judges than for legislators

and you have the privilege in many cases of getting to vote for them. But how do you pick who you're going to vote for?

>> Rick Beggs: Well, and we should be, we should be really interested and keenly interested because they shape law for decades. that's what they're doing. We are governed by that every day.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah, yeah, they get to rule on the legality of laws that are passed. Or they're supposed to, they're not supposed to create laws. They're supposed to say, do this, does this law align with the Constitution, you know, or does it align with previous rulings and things? I'm not a lawyer, but, yeah, we don't want them to create laws at the court. In fact, that's what we call being an activist judge who is Going beyond what the actual law said. And so that's part of what we want to be, discerning of when we're voting on judges. Is, is this a judge who, you know, goes back to the Constitution and the original intent of the text, or is this a judge who is more of an activist from the court?

>> Rick Beggs: So what are we looking for? Because the questionnaire is different for judges.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah.

>> Rick Beggs: When, when, when we send a questionnaire out, it's not the same as a congressman, somebody running for Congress.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah, yeah. So for Congress, we're asking about policy positions that they would be for or against. You know, what do they support, what do they not support? Judges won't answer those questions. so we've, we've really recrafted. It's very different, unique questionnaire to get more at the, the judicial philosophy of how they are going to judge. not a particular rule, a law that they agree with or disagree with. But, you know, how would they interpret, you know, maybe precedent versus, you know, how would they apply precedent versus other things that are going on in the court? So, so, you know, I think maybe we just need to talk through some of the questions and why they're different from the legislative questionnaires.

>> Rick Beggs: Well, let's talk about some concrete examples of what you would ask them. I mean, maybe case rulings. What, what, what is it that we would be looking for?

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah, well, and I will start by saying, you know, for legislators, we do divide and put questions on, on topics. So we have right to life questions for legislators. We also have right to life questions for judges, but it's ruled or, worded differently, I guess. So like a right to life question for a judge. We asked them, was the Dobbs versus Jackson rightly decided according to the text of the Constitution? And please explain. So that was the, the ruling that, says the US Supreme Court held that the federal constitution does not confer a right to abortion. So in a way, this, this questionnaire, there's only one question that is one of the strongly agree, strongly disagreeable. The rest of them are almost like essay questions for them to impart their philosophy or how they would approach something if they were on the bench. And this question came to them. So do they agree with Dobbs vs Jackson rightly decided, and then they get to, you know, go verbose on us and give us their opinions?

>> Rick Beggs: Well, to me, that's the best part of it. If they will actually answer the survey, do we, do we have a good, percentage of people who actually were running for Judge Ship. And they answer the questionnaire.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, I know it's certainly gone up from when we originally did the questionnaire, when it was more like the legislative questions. And if they answered it would be, I'm not allowed to answer this because I might rule on this type of thing. I'm like, well, that's not really an answer. So it is higher. I know. we've said I vote in Texas, and in the primary, there were multiple judges on my primary ballot and quite a few of them had answered the questionnaire. So I'm going to guess I should have pulled statistics that we probably got about half of the judges that answered the questionnaire, at least in Texas this year, which was. And in fact, ah, a guy from my church ran for judge and he's like, Debbie, that questionnaire took me like two or three hours to complete. It is so in depth. And because we asked them to really expound upon their reasoning, which kind of is trying to give us an insight into, you know, how they will rule if they're on the bench.

Do the Federal Constitution support the right to a physician assisted suicide

So, you know, another right to life, one we ask them about is, physician assisted suicide. Does the Federal Constitution support the right to a physician assisted suicide? Please explain in light of Washington v. Glucksburg. Well, lawyers would hopefully know that I'm, I'm, I'm kind of clueless as to what that means, but I like that we ask them to apply their legal understanding in answering the questions.

>> Rick Beggs: Well, it does make you. Even if you don't know where they fall politically, a lot of times, these answers will help guide you real quickly.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: I agree.

>> Rick Beggs: So, yeah. So, do we, do we have, Or do you have a thought about how these have to change from year to year? I mean, I think if, different things that have just happened over the last four to six years, whether it's the, you know, the Masterpiece Cake Shop. I believe that was in Colorado where you have the Joe Kennedy up in Washington, state. So those things are relatively new. We ask about those as well.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: We do. Well, I know we've got the Masterpiece Cake Shop in our religious liberty section. And again, we ask it the same way we did that Dobbs question. Was it rightly decided according to the text of the Constitution? So asking for, you know, like, maybe how would they have voted if they were on that, on that panel of judges? And to give their reasoning, like if, if you were in the, you know, what they call the affirmative or the dissent, what would your thinking have been on that? I'm Trying to think, do we have the Coach Kennedy question on there? But I know we've. We've added a question about Obergefell, in. In the, in the marriage section. So just like we update the legislative questionnaire based upon, you know, current rules that have passed. I mean, obviously we wouldn't have asked about Dobbs before Dobbs was decided. So that got added after the Dobbs decision. Masterpiece. case. Poor guy's gone to the Supreme Court twice now. Colorado, keeps pushing it, so asking that, that kind of question. but we do have some questions that probably will always be there that are more about, you know, well, the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Does it require government to be strictly secular or does it allow for religious, the nation's religious heritage? That's kind of related to the Kennedy decision, in my understanding.

>> Rick Beggs: Yeah, it very much is.

We ask judges to describe their spiritual beliefs and values

so we, we do ask them specifically about what their philosophical bent is from the bench.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah, I think we have one on. How would you describe your judicial philosophy? Are you looking as. Yeah. Describe your judicial philosophy. We, you know, I love. I can't. Not as I'm scrolling down the questionnaire. I love that we still include the values questions. Even though they're judges, I would rather have somebody that shares my worldview. So, I, I love that we ask them to describe their spiritual beliefs and values. and in the same value fall

>> Rick Beggs: in the about you section.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: I see it in the values section. It might be in the about you, but. Because to me, it is a values question that we also ask, is gender identity a protected class under the Constitution? And please explain the constitutional basis for your view. and what's your understanding of parental rights under the Constitution regarding the upbringing of children, particularly regarding choices about education and sexual identity? So, again, we're not asking them how you'd rule on a particular case. We're kind of asking for their, their philosophy or their understanding. but our biggest section for the judges is judicial philosophy, which leads with that, just as you described. Describe your judicial philosophy. And we're looking for, you know, do they. Do they use terms like I want to get to the original meaning or go to the original intent? I look at the text and just how, you know, how was it originally intended to mean? or do we talk about serving justice and, you know, doing what's right and things like that, which can be the language sometimes used by those activist judges.

>> Rick Beggs: It's so funny because in a court setting, you wouldn't want a judge who, allows people to be vague and, and evasive. But I would think on their questionnaire sometimes they might be themselves. They might give themselves away. Yeah.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: And that's, you know, that comes into. How do we interpret what they say and how do we, you know, we look, you know, we can look for phrases that give us a hint to that, leaning, basically, which is what we use to. To. It's one of the items we look at when we're assigning a rating.

>> Rick Beggs: Do we have a set of different panelists that deal with judges?

>> Debbie Wuthnow: We do. We don't even use volunteer panelists for judges because, you know, I would not be qualified to evaluate a judge. So we have lawyers.

>> Rick Beggs: You're not. You know, I'm not.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, so we have so we have our lawyers on our team and then we work with the the AFA Action Division, the Center for Judicial Renewal, who's a lawyer and he's research. His whole division is researching judges to create a green list for Supreme Court nominees should there be an opening. And also for district court openings, the. For judges that are appointed by the federal administration. So he assists us in assigning a rating. Our team is like really doing the deep dive and reading the rulings and reading, you know, looking if they've been at law school and their whole background and quotes and gathering this whole research paper and then that center for Judicial Renewal. And we're actually working with some lawyers in different states that potentially have sat in front of or what do they call it when you're. You're, you're the lawyer in front of that judge, if you've ever been in front of them, to interact with them, to give us m Guidance into their bent as to being more originalist or more activist because that's how we rate them. It's not on the conservative to liberal spectrum. I guess we should have said that at the get go. It's from Activist to originalist. And we actually have proven activists or proven originalist. If we've got case law or rulings that that point us to. They've actually done this. They've ruled on a controversial case like Masterpiece or voter ID or something like that. And, and really stuck to the text. and. And that's what puts them in that proven originalist camp.

>> Rick Beggs: But we do get a good place. This might be a good place to give a shout out to the judicial portion of AFA Action because that's been real key for us as we put all this together and go down ballot through judges.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: It's been super helpful and it's very much a behind the scenes division that's just quietly research those judges at such a depth to look at. I mean they, I think they actually wrote Philip Jeraga who leads that division wrote a paper called the 10 attributes of a Constitutional Jurist. And so I mean I, I can't list them. He could but it worldview is a big part of that. And so they are looking and they're reading speeches and papers and what church do they attend and where do their kids go to school and where do they go to school and have they, have they been in law school and what do they teach or were they with a firm, you know a legal law firm and, and what type of practice did they do to try to get at their judicial philosophy even if they've never served? And creating that they, they rate those judges and create a green list now they'll research judges that anybody's talking about as potential nominees and do ah, a very in depth research, create a whole research paper that you can see on the website for center for Judicial Renewal for those green list judges. But they look at quite a few that don't quite make the green list because you know, if we look at the, the rulings that get before the Supreme Court and how important that lifetime appointment is, it's got to be the best of the best. It can't just be eh, he's a good guy. we really need to do the research. So that's why it's super important what Philip does. And he has really come alongside us in understanding that honestly the judges that we elect are the potential appointments to the Supreme Court. Right. So it, him helping us with. It's like the bench. It is the bench. The farm team literally, it literally is the bench. So it's super important. And he's. We're trying to build, you know, vetted other lawyers in states or ones who work for ADF or First Liberty or other legal Christian space groups that can help us in, in rating those judges. Just m realizing that we're building the farm team of future potential nominees to district court, federal court, and Supreme Court.

>> Rick Beggs: You know it's not, it's not too hard to recall some scriptures where judging and judges are really important. Especially in the Old Testament. You know, I think of you know, a portion of scripture like Micah Ah, 6, 8 I believe where it talks about to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with your God. I mean it's, it really is important that we have that modeled in our judges. I'm not sure we get that anywhere and everywhere. But to look for those types of people very much so to the bench.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: But I would, I would add a caveat that we love justice. But, what do we define as justice? Is it keeping to the law? because sometimes, you know this new phrase, social justice. Is the judge working towards social justice and diversity and all of that, or are they getting back to the laws God intended to natural law? and, and keeping to the, the way it was worded. So I agree with you Micah is, is spot on. Deuteronomy also speaks to, you know, we need to appoint judges and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment and not to pervert judges justice. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. We have to look at the full picture of what they're doing.

iVoterGuide uses questionnaire to help voters identify potential Supreme Court nominees

>> Rick Beggs: Yeah. I go back to even when, are you just a good guy? And we'll put you in there. I, I can think of a lot of places where presidents with Supreme Court, but also, and mostly in, in states with supreme courts and district courts, were you nominate or appoint, a woman or a man who just happened to be a buddy of theirs or they were college, roommates and now

>> Debbie Wuthnow: they're sort of same way people get jobs. Next in line corporations. Right. So you knew. Yeah, right. Somebody recommended me. But are they really qualified? Will they do the job we really want them to do? So that's why I voter guide started researching those judges so that you, the voter can, can know, you know, is this somebody really qualified or is this just a friend of the governor and somebody kind of. He gave him a large gift, so now I'm going to put him on the Supreme Court.

>> Rick Beggs: So questions fall into a handful, of categories. You, you mentioned right to life, religious liberty, values, judicial philosophy, of course, things like criminal justice, which would be important. How do they view the second Amendment? I mean we, it's pretty thorough what we're asking of them.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Yeah, no, we, I think our, our survey, as always, is, is pretty in depth at getting to all the various attributes, I guess, and categories that we would want a justice to, to or a judge to, to rule upon. I mean it is to my friend who said it took him so long, much longer than other questionnaires he received. And they do get multiple questionnaires. So, I really would encourage you if you've got a judge on your ballot and they've answered the questionnaire, read it thoughtfully, you might actually learn something. In the process and respect the time that they have put into providing those answers.

>> Rick Beggs: We have a few moments left.

Today is the last day for early voting in Oklahoma

Debbie and I thought, we probably should get caught up on what is coming up for the primary season.

>> Debbie Wuthnow: Well, sure. Election. We're almost to the end of the primaries, finally. So this coming Tuesday, August 25th, Georgia, you will have the election for your special General runoff for CD13. In Oklahoma, your off will happen on the 25th. And today is the last day for early voting in Oklahoma. But several states are actually a couple are early voting. Massachusetts, early voting begins today for your election on September 1st. And in Rhode island, you can early vote your elections on the 9th. That's it for elections.

>> Rick Beggs: All right. We are coming towards the end. I. Voterguide.com that's where you go to find more information about us. And we are so glad that you're a part of what we do. Find [email protected] or better yet, go down and get the app. AFR app. And you can hear us every week. And even when it's not Saturday, you can write to us at Compass at ivoterguy. Com and you can have your questions answered by Debbie and myself or our staff. Remember, on the compass, Jesus is our true north.