If you’re like me, you do not know much about most of the people running and will probably get only one shot to hear the candidates in person.
My personal preference is for a candidate who will commit to exploring and supporting options for eliminating the position as a elected office. It is an office that few understand and nobody pays attention to outside of the probate
bar . . . until corruption puts it on the front page. The job is administrative and I suspect the Commonwealth would be best served if the Governor or the Chief Justice of the Probate Court appointed the Registrar.
Also, at the risk of offending some, I suggest that the most important qualifications for this job are administrative experience and familiarity with the business of the Probate and Family Court rather than party activism (though the candidates whose names I know all appear to be serious Democrats). In short, I’m looking for competence and credibility.
I hope nobody finds this too obnoxious. Thanks for listening.
Why would I take your suggestion seriously, if you can’t even get the most basic fact right?
Now that I got the nitpickiness out of the way, why does anyone think that an appointed Register of Probate would be any more qualified or more professional than an elected one?
Rather than the people electing a politician, you’d have the governor appointing– a politician. Look at the nationwide searches we’ve had for appointed administrative positions over the years. Peter Blute. Matt Amorello. Rachel Kaprelian. If the Register of Probate was appointed, the governor would just appoint some state senator or state rep. We’d just be exchanging one set of elected “hacks” with some level of accountability to the voters for another set of appointed hacks, with zero accountability to the voters. (Even if the judiciary made the appointment, there’d still be a political element to it. Most of the clerks magistrate and assistants are all politically connected.)
The thing about all this that gets lost, is that there are thirteen other Registers of Probate out there who do their jobs, quietly and professionally. The people voted them in, and there haven’t been any major problems. It’s just Middlesex causing problems for everyone else again.
All three candidates with diaries promoted to the recc list misspell the position as well. A bit scary, no?
nevermind