FROM JUDGE TO POLITICAL COLUMNIST
I retired from the Circuit Court Bench on January 4, 2000.
About five years later, I approached Jerry Taylor, a friend of mine from the Quad City Music Guild. I told Jerry, who was the publisher of the Moline Dispatch, that I would like to write conservative op eds for the Dispatch. Jerry took me up on my offer, and my first op ed appeared in the Dispatch in 2005. Then, when the Dispatch acquired the Rock Island Argus, my op eds began to appear in both papers.
Over time, the Dispatch and Argus were gobbled up by Lee Enterprises, Jerry was "retired," and my articles began to also appear in the Quad City Times. But things weren’t the same. The co-operative experience that I had enjoyed, while Jerry was my publisher and Kenda Burrows was my editor, disappeared. If Kenda felt I had made a mistake, she would contact me, and ask, “Did you mean what you wrote here? Is your calculation correct? Did you leave out a word here? I would make the fix, and the article would be published.
When Lee Enterprises took over, there was next-to-no communication. If they didn’t like the article, they simply didn’t publish it without any explanation. After replacing a number of their editors, Lee Enterprises advised that they were laying off all their "local correspondents" in July of 2023 (for financial reasons). Recently, I have been advised, that I, like two of the others, may continue writing, but without compensation. I am still considering whether I wish to do that.
That being said I am deeply grateful to Jerry, Kenda, the Dispatch, the Argus and the QC Times for affording me the privilege to put my opinions before the public. It was a privilege that few are afforded.
I am proud of what I have written, and I believe my opinion pieces will stand the test of time. As for my predictions, well, that's a different matter. I will concede that I am not particularly good as a soothsayer.
The bottom line is this: some political men make every effort to bury their past and hide their mistakes. I refuse to do that. To borrow Martin Luther's famous statement, "Here I stand." You can applaud me if you believe that what I wrote, at the time, was correct. You can criticize me if you believe what I wrote, given the available existing facts at the time, was error.
I am particularly proud of my op eds on abortion, on the First Amendment as creating (in the words of Mr. Justice Holmes) "a marketplace of ideas, on my historical analysis as to why we have a Second Amendment, on my analysis of why the death penalty is appropriate in certain limited cases, on my analysis of "ends" and "means," and on my adherence to the "Constitutional doctrine" of "original intent." I believe these opinions will stand the test of time.
A few words about the format of these books. I wrote my op eds from 2005 until mid-2023. My op eds cover some 1500 pages. Rather than having just one big thick book, I have divided my work into four books:
The Early Years — Book One
The Early-Middle Years — Book Two
The Later- Middle Years — Book Three, and
The Final Years — Book Four
My Table of Contents, and my Index, however, cover all 18 years. I have made this choice to allow a reader or researcher to quickly locate all the op eds that I have written over the years on the various topics that I have written on.
For example, a reader interested in my writings on “Abortion” or on the “First Amendment Right of Freedom of Speech, can check the index in any one of my four books and discover all that I have written on the various subjects that appear in books 1, 2, 3, or 4.
I retired from the Circuit Court Bench on January 4, 2000.
About five years later, I approached Jerry Taylor, a friend of mine from the Quad City Music Guild. I told Jerry, who was the publisher of the Moline Dispatch, that I would like to write conservative op eds for the Dispatch. Jerry took me up on my offer, and my first op ed appeared in the Dispatch in 2005. Then, when the Dispatch acquired the Rock Island Argus, my op eds began to appear in both papers.
Over time, the Dispatch and Argus were gobbled up by Lee Enterprises, Jerry was "retired," and my articles began to also appear in the Quad City Times. But things weren’t the same. The co-operative experience that I had enjoyed, while Jerry was my publisher and Kenda Burrows was my editor, disappeared. If Kenda felt I had made a mistake, she would contact me, and ask, “Did you mean what you wrote here? Is your calculation correct? Did you leave out a word here? I would make the fix, and the article would be published.
When Lee Enterprises took over, there was next-to-no communication. If they didn’t like the article, they simply didn’t publish it without any explanation. After replacing a number of their editors, Lee Enterprises advised that they were laying off all their "local correspondents" in July of 2023 (for financial reasons). Recently, I have been advised, that I, like two of the others, may continue writing, but without compensation. I am still considering whether I wish to do that.
That being said I am deeply grateful to Jerry, Kenda, the Dispatch, the Argus and the QC Times for affording me the privilege to put my opinions before the public. It was a privilege that few are afforded.
I am proud of what I have written, and I believe my opinion pieces will stand the test of time. As for my predictions, well, that's a different matter. I will concede that I am not particularly good as a soothsayer.
The bottom line is this: some political men make every effort to bury their past and hide their mistakes. I refuse to do that. To borrow Martin Luther's famous statement, "Here I stand." You can applaud me if you believe that what I wrote, at the time, was correct. You can criticize me if you believe what I wrote, given the available existing facts at the time, was error.
I am particularly proud of my op eds on abortion, on the First Amendment as creating (in the words of Mr. Justice Holmes) "a marketplace of ideas, on my historical analysis as to why we have a Second Amendment, on my analysis of why the death penalty is appropriate in certain limited cases, on my analysis of "ends" and "means," and on my adherence to the "Constitutional doctrine" of "original intent." I believe these opinions will stand the test of time.
A few words about the format of these books. I wrote my op eds from 2005 until mid-2023. My op eds cover some 1500 pages. Rather than having just one big thick book, I have divided my work into four books:
The Early Years — Book One
The Early-Middle Years — Book Two
The Later- Middle Years — Book Three, and
The Final Years — Book Four
My Table of Contents, and my Index, however, cover all 18 years. I have made this choice to allow a reader or researcher to quickly locate all the op eds that I have written over the years on the various topics that I have written on.
For example, a reader interested in my writings on “Abortion” or on the “First Amendment Right of Freedom of Speech, can check the index in any one of my four books and discover all that I have written on the various subjects that appear in books 1, 2, 3, or 4.