As is so often the case, there are lots of interesting stories up on Colorado Politics. Election season brings a wide range of stories, and other “regular” news events also pop up. So let me start by telling you what I’m not going to talk about today.

I’m not going to talk about the brief CoPo story that reports on what the former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters told her deputy when officials learned computer hard drives and passwords she oversaw were leaked on the internet. If you’ve followed the story, Peters is in big trouble for basically trying to cheat the system to get more votes for a certain former president and current felon. When her actions became public, Peters told her deputy “I’m going to jail.”

But I’m not going to talk about that particular MAGA abhorrent behavior.

Nor am I going to talk about the ongoing and remarkable saga of the Colorado GOP’s leadership crisis as it attempts to rid itself of state Chair Dave Williams. As reported in CoPo, yet another judge has entered the internal squabbling of the state Republican Party. I admit, from my perspective as a former political science professor and a former Democratic County chair (El Paso), I find this palace intrigue quite fascinating and, well, to quote the governor of Minnesota, “weird.”

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Williams, you see, got into trouble with his own party when he committed a series of actions seen to be done for his own benefit (such as using some party funds for his own run for Congress, which he lost in a primary) and attacking Colorado’s LGBTQI community during Pride Month. Williams then saw a revolt start within the party, as the rank-and-file GOPers would like to win some elections, especially statewide, which they haven’t done in a while.

Both main parties have a thing called the “central committee” which I’ve always thought was a strange sounding name. This committee holds regular meetings and must approve of most proposed party actions. Various factions in the Colorado GOP central committee have tried to call meetings in order to hold a vote on firing Williams as party chair, while Williams and his seemingly few followers have proposed other meetings wherein they would vote to keep Williams. Both sides claim the meetings called by the others are invalid, so it’s a mess.

Not surprisingly, I guess, both factions went to court, and initially Williams got a judge to issue an injunction against the central committee meeting and voting. But as CoPo reports, the anti-Williams folks got a different judge to squash that injunction, on the basis the courts have no right to play in the internal workings of independent political parties, which sounds correct to me. So now we await the next chapter in this drama, which would seem to be leading to Williams’ expulsion.

But I’m not going to talk about that.

Nor am I going to talk about the CoPo story about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his efforts to be a spoiler in Colorado and, frankly and ultimately, to be an agent for Trump. Kennedy has qualified for the Colorado ballot as an independent, but the state Libertarian Party wants to have him as their presidential nominee also, in spite of that party actually having a presidential nominee. It’s crazy politics and destructive, but you guessed it, I’m not going to talk about that.

Instead, I want to draw your attention to another CoPo story I’d be willing to bet most folks passed over, but stood out to me as a very important report. Around 2009, then-Gov. Bill Ritter appointed me to a seat on my local judicial review committee.

You probably know Colorado is divided into 22 judicial districts. In Colorado, judges face regular votes every few years on whether they should keep their jobs or not. If they lose the retention vote, they are out of office.

For each of the districts, there is a committee of citizens appointed to oversee judges in their districts and write reports on judges facing a retention vote.

We don’t “reelect” judges, but rather, as noted above, the people vote on which judges should be retained and which should not. To help guide and inform people, each district commission researches judges for a vote and observes them in the court room. Each judge is individually interviewed by the commission, and the commission then votes on whether to recommend retention or dismissal. Those reports are mailed to every voter in that little blue booklet you get explaining what elections are taking place. In the back, you will find a report on every judge up for consideration.

Happily, since good people are generally appointed to be judges, commissions almost always recommend retention. In this cycle, the 22 commissions recommended 116 be retained and only voted one to not be recommended.

This is a big deal. Commissions work hard to provide voters with accurate information about the judges in their communities and I urge you to take a look at the blue booklet and review which of your local judges are up for consideration. You should cast an informed vote on which judges should be kept and which should not, and your vote matters.

Take the time to review the comments and the votes of your local commission, and I urge you to use that analysis as a basis for your voting decision.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.