Chuck Rosenthal may be gone, but sadly his brand of “humor” lives on at the courthouse.
The Harris County Republican Party chairman is calling for a GOP misdemeanor court judge to resign because, using the courthouse computer system, he circulated e-mail in 2006 that ridiculed blacks, Hispanics, women and gays and contained a racial slur.
Chairman Jared Woodfill’s move against County Court at Law No. 6 Judge Larry Standley comes 11 months after Woodfill and other party leaders called for the resignation of District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal over his scandalous e-mails. Rosenthal resigned a few months later after the controversy intensified.
Standley, re-elected in 2006 to a four-year term, said his only response to criticism now is that his actions were cleared by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which deliberates in private.
“If there were any complaints filed, they were investigated and they were dismissed,” he said.
The commission did look into a complaint about the e-mails and took no official action, according to several officials.But controversy about Standley’s electronic messages resurfaced this month when County Court at Law No. 14 Judge Mike Fields, the only black misdemeanor court judge here, failed to win a promotion by Gov. Rick Perry to a vacant seat on a Houston-based appeals court.
Woodfill had recommended Fields, a Republican, for the job. He said he later learned Fields had encountered resistance because his objection to the e-mails in 2006 had strained his relationships with other judges.
With copies of the e-mails now in hand, Woodfill recently had Fields and Standley explain their actions to the party’s advisory committee, the same group that helped push out Rosenthal.
Woodfill said merely the content of Standley’s e-mails justifies calling for his resignation, regardless of whether the fallout affected Fields.
“When you see racism like that you have to kill it one act at a time,” Woodfill said. “Regardless of what party you are affiliated with, you have to stand up and say it was wrong.”
“The people have given him the trust of the office of judge, and when you have sent e-mail like that you have compromised the trust that people have given to you,” he added. “You surrender the moral authority when you promulgate e-mails like that. They are not funny and they have no business in the courthouse or your personal life.”
First things first, kudos to Woodfill for doing the right thing. That can’t have been particularly easy for a county party chair after his party just lost a bunch of elections, but he did it anyway, and that’s commendable. Too bad Judge Standley doesn’t see it that way.
As it happens, I recently went through a mandatory corporate training session on harassment in the workplace. I don’t care what the conduct commission said, what Standley did is exactly the sort of thing that would very quickly land you in hot water with HR at just about any private company in town. His lame excuse shows that he doesn’t get it, and the snippy comment from his fellow Judge Sherman Ross shows he’s not alone in that. I don’t know about you, but all of a sudden I’m really looking forward to voting these jokers out in 2010. Thanks in advance for the incentive, fellas.
UPDATE: Mark Bennett has a different view.