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OMR

Upward And Onward?

Michigan Supreme Court candidate Hilda Gage lost the race,
but her star appears to be on the rise.

JULIE EDGAR STAFF WRITER

congratulatory bouquet of
spring flowers sits on a
table in her kitchen, a
mocking reminder of the
fickleness of political fortune.
And as late as last Sunday,
people came up to Oakland Coun-
ty Circuit Court Judge Hilda
Gage to congratulate her for win-
ning a Michigan Supreme Court
seat in the Nov. 5 general elec-
tion.
Word travels slowly.
Judge Gage, 57, lost her first
bid for statewide office to Michi-
gan Court of Appeals Judge Mar-
ilyn Kelly. Polling results in
Detroit, which came in very late
election night, pushed Judge Kel-
ly ahead by some 100,000 votes.
"I had already been declared a
winner, but because I hadn't got-
ten a call from Lansing, I knew
there was trouble," Judge Gage
said. The bad news came late the
next day, but it didn't bruise too
badly, she said, because she
hadn't expected to do as well as
she did. In fact, she never took

time off from her job at the cir-
cuit court to campaign.
Her loss might be working for
her, as it turns out: Judge Gage
would not confirm it, but there is
speculation that she has been of-
fered an appointment by Gov.
John Engler to fill Judge Kelly's
unexpired term on
the appeals court
bench. If she ac-
cepts it, she would
serve for two years
and then run in the
1998 general election.
The governor would ap-
point a replacement for
Judge Gage, whose circuit
court term is up in two years.
Names that have surfaced for the
seat include Wendy Potts, whose
husband David worked closely
with Judge Gage during the cam-
Paign.
The experience of running a
statewide campaign wasn't as un-
pleasant or as grueling as she ex-
pected, despite one political
advertisement on television that

accused her of disliking manda-
tory prison sentences for violent
offenders.
What she had said during a
public hearing of the state Sen-
tencing Commission, of which
she's a member, is that discretion
should be restored to the sen-
tencing judge because not all
convicted criminals are
alike.
"You get stroked a
lot," Judge Gage said.
"A person in Lansing
said he'd never seen
so many people want
to give a candidate so
much money." She be-
lieves her campaign raised
over $500,000 from sources that
ranged from the Michigan State
Medical Society to the Michigan
Chamber of Commerce to the
Grocers Association.
Everybody she met, in fact,
was "solicitous."
Only one newspaper men-
tioned her multiple sclerosis, say-
ing it showed in her physical

Judge
Hilda
Gage:
Upward
bound?

movements but not in her intel-
lectual abilities.
Most of her political commer-
ciaLs were taped at her home, and
one supporter whom she met at
the beginning of the campaign
flew her around the state in his
private airplane to attend fund-
raisers and editorial board meet-
ings.
Judge Gage thought she would
encounter anti-Semitism from
the Christian Coalition, which
has a strong presence in west
Michigan, but found that its

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members were far more con-
cerned about her religious devo-
tion than her religious beliefs.
And she refused to answer their
queries about her views on right-
to-life issues, citing her ethical
obligation as a judge. They still
actively supported her.
In literature distributed by the
state Republican Party, the judge
was lauded for being the first
woman to preside over the Judi-
cial Tenure Commission and the
first woman to usher at Congre-
gation Shaarey Zedek.

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