Letters to the editor LGO teaser

Union County District Attorney Kelsie McDaniel has been disqualifying Judge Wes Williams for five years now, and her ongoing disqualifications have become the central issue in our 2024 election.

The real reason behind McDaniel’s disqualifications has always been a mystery. McDaniel has claimed that Williams is so biased that her office can’t get a fair hearing before him. But whatever Williams may have actually done, McDaniel apparently didn’t think it was bad enough to upset local voters — instead, she seemed to consider it necessary to distort and fabricate descriptions of Williams’ decisions when she began disqualifying him. During the 15-month-long ethics investigation into statements McDaniel made to disqualify Williams, her team of Portland attorneys had to retract her most inflammatory descriptions outright.

Despite the many ways in which McDaniel misrepresented Williams’ actions, her disqualifications are still the primary issue in our 2024 judicial race. Supporters of Williams’ challenger, Jared Boyd, have been posting pages from McDaniel’s disqualification memorandum online, perhaps believing that they are true. Boyd has made the disqualifications the hallmark of his campaign.

In private, Boyd has expressed concerns about McDaniel and doubts about her 2020 memorandum, but he has made the memorandum publicly available, and his campaign is all about McDaniel’s disqualifications. One thing Boyd’s campaign tells us is that he’s unwilling to cross McDaniel, even when he considers her actions to be out of line.

Like the rest of us, he already knows what happens to a judge who offends our DA.

Boyd is already demonstrating that he is willing to give McDaniel slack. Electing a judge who cannot stand up to a DA who cannot be trusted would not solve the dysfunction in our local courts. It would only make our problems worse.

We all need to worry if a dishonest, vindictive prosecutor can gain even more control of our courts by ousting a judge she dislikes. That’s why I’m voting to reelect Wes Williams.

Anne Morrison

La Grande