Whitewater has a municipal court, and since a municipal court then a municipal judge presiding over that court. In the course of the campaign between Chad Buehler and Patrick Taylor, the candidates have discussed questions of experience, background, and perspective. They’ve both offered outlines of how they would serve, but they both face this same challenge to those aspirations: the role of the court has slowly shrunk into a fee-processing source of municipal revenue. Indeed, one could guess many residents haven’t thought much about Whitewater’s municipal court in many years.
That’s a shame, truly. Libertarians are not in the habit of encouraging government to be bigger than necessary, but nor are we in the habit of encouraging less from government where it does have a necessary role.
When this election is over, one of these two candidates will have the task of making this local court more than what it has been. To do this, someone will have to make campaign aspirations into daily practice.
That’s no easy task in this beautiful, but sometimes troubled, city.
Previously:
Local Elections 2019: The Limits of Local (Part 1 of 4), Local Elections 2019: School Board (Part 2 of 4), and Local Elections 2019: City Council (Part 3 of 4).