This is one of two contested judicial races in Ramsey County. The two candidates:

Timothy Carey (incumbent)
Paul Yang

Judge Carey was appointed in 2022 by Governor Walz. I looked him up and didn’t find any disqualifying scandals or any reason not to vote for him to continue to serve as a judge.

Here’s what Paul Yang says on his website about his legal experience: “Professionally, before founding my law firm in 2016 here in the Twin Cities, I worked as an associate for at an established general practice law firm. […] There, I gained invaluable experience in criminal law, immigration, family law, Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, personal injury, and workers’ compensation law.  I have a combined 15 plus years in legal (involving complex litigation) and community work—from administrative to appellate level cases; from small claims to death cases.  In addition to appearing in District Court, I have extensive courtroom experience before the Department of Labor and Industry, Office of Administrative Hearings and the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals–including ADR hearings at the American Arbitration Association.” He doesn’t have a LinkedIn. I did find his firm’s website: https://www.schoepyanglaw.com/ — he says he founded his law firm but seems to have in fact taken over an existing solo practice firm after the person who owned it died. (I’m not sure how much that distinction actually matters.)

There was an editorial in the Star Tribune this week by a guy who used to chair the state committee for judicial selection (which is to say, the committee that recommends people who would make good judges.) He focused on three other contested races and to highlight the lack of actual courtroom experience by the challengers, he looked them up on the Minnesota Court Records Online site. He didn’t comment on this race, but I looked up Paul Yang in the MCRO attorney search and got one hit. That’s not a lot of courtroom experience, at least that’s findable in the MCRO. He’s an injury attorney, and a lot of what they do involves making it clear to insurance companies that they’d better not lowball you, so … who knows. For what it’s worth, when I looked up something else today in MCRO I couldn’t find it (it was a pending criminal case I was curious about, and it turns out criminal cases in MN that are still open can’t be turned up if you just have the defendant’s name) so it’s possible I’m missing stuff.

An important note: there’s a Ramsey County judge on the bench right now named P. Paul Yang. This is a different guy! (P. Paul Yang challenged an incumbent judge and actually won, although in his case, the judge had been arrested for drunk driving. You can read my post from that year here if you’re curious, but again, this was a totally different guy. Paul Yang, despite the way some of his signs make it look, is not currently a judge.)

The County Bar Association polls members about each race and 93% of the Ramsey County members were going to vote for Judge Carey. (There’s a useful site with info on the judicial races here.) Like me, they err heavily on the side of re-electing judicial incumbents unless there’s a reason not to. I don’t think there’s a reason not to.

I am planning to vote for Judge Carey.

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I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people to donate to fundraisers I can then see fund. Usually I do teacher fundraisers (and I found one for this year, Ms. Pierce at Lucy Craft Laney school in North Minneapolis who would like donations to buy snacks for her students and supplies like Lysol wipes — stuff that schools with wealthier families just have the parents send in).

But I’m also fundraising for something slightly more personal to my family this year: YMCA Camp Northern Lights. Camp Northern Lights is a family camp, which is a camp that whole families attend together. My family went to Camp Du Nord (the other YMCA family camp) for many years, and my daughter Kiera has worked as a counselor at Camp Northern Lights for the last two summers. One of the things that makes Camp Northern Lights unique is their serious commitment to inclusion of families from communities that have been underrepresented at YMCA camps.

Last summer, Camp Northern Lights had a serious fire early in the summer — no one was hurt, but they lost their commercial kitchen and the housing for the counselors-in-training. They are hoping to raise enough money to rebuild an expanded kitchen. I have set up a fundraiser towards that goal. If you’d like to express your appreciation for the usefulness of this blog, you can show your love by donating to my fundraiser! (9/23 note: the images aren’t loading on their pages — any of them, as far as I can tell, it’s not just me — but the fundraiser still works.)