Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Rant Alert: Angry Mommy at Law

A very small article from Thursday's PD states that one of the candidates for Juvenile Court Judge was removed from the ballot for using her maiden name.

The candidate, Jennifer Martinez, has issued a news release on her website.

So let me get this straight.

A woman is not legally required to change her name upon marriage--I think we can all agree that would be fairly blatant gender discrimination.

Attorney Martinez filed her petitions using the only name she legally possesses.

The Board of Elections gave her bad advice about the use of her name.

The attorney who filed the protest did not file in the proper place but the protest happened to be "in the building" on time. (Attorneys being the people who are supposed to know the proper places for filing things.)

I am astounded at the absurdity. It would almost be comical except that it removes a well qualified attorney from the ballot.

This is so clearly not a case of a person choosing to run on a politically advantageous name. How can this even be categorized as her "maiden name" if she chose not to change her name. What do they consider to be the last name of a married male?

I hope that the Court of Appeals corrects this situation so that Attorney Martinez can focus on running for Juvenile Judge.