Jeanette Burrage is a moralizing rightwinger who, as a King County Superior Court judge, threatened female attorneys with contempt if they wore pants in her courtroom. These antics earned her the moniker “skirts judge.”
Voters evicted her from that position in 2000, and refused to elect her to other judicial positions in subsequent elections (Court of Appeals in 2002, Supreme Court in 2006); she was a 1-term state legislator in 1981-1982, and lost a bid to return to the legislature last year, but was elected to the Des Moines city council in 2011. She has decided not to run for re-election and will leave that position in December 2015.
Burrage was driving a school bus for some strange reason (why isn’t she practicing law?). She’s now suspended from that job, and facing termination, because she slapped a 6-year-old autistic boy’s face. I don’t know what provoked it; maybe the kid spit on her or something like that. She has to appear in municipal court on a 4th degree assault charge for that incident, according to the Seattle Times; you can read the story here.
In her 2011 campaign blurb, Burrage touted herself as a champion of at-risk children:
“I was elected to the State Legislature in 1980 and … served on a temporary committee, The Select Committee on Child Abuse. … I am currently co-leader of the SW Coalition Against Trafficking, which seeks to eliminate forced teenage prostitution and other forms of modern slavery. Washington’s statutes are a model for the nation, but … more must be done ….”
Yeah, like protecting vulnerable kids from child abusers! I guess Burrage is okay on child abuse issues when she’s talking about it as a policy issue in committee meetings, and doesn’t actually meet an at-risk child and start beating on him.
I don’t know her, so I don’t know what she’s all about, but she doesn’t strike me as your ordinary conservative ideologue. Rather, my impression of her over the years, as I’ve watched her political campaigns and judicial antics from a safe distance (i.e., from where I won’t get thrown in the hoosegow or whacked upside the head), is that she’s someone with personal problems, who perhaps glommed onto the conservative movement as a way to advance her career, but she keeps sabotaging herself due to her personality quirks and personal idiosyncrasies.
Let’s face it, autistic kids can drive you nuts, and their special needs demand more patience than she has. Burrage, given her personal limitations, probably should stick to advocating for them and shouldn’t be the one driving them to school. She wasn’t cut out to be a school bus driver.
Update: Burrage resigned from the Des Moines City Council on April 21.