Could it be there’s something in the water? Do members of the Macomb County judiciary take one look at their newborn baby and say, “He (She) is going to be a judge!” Do they send their child off to the first day of school dressed in a black robe?

For decades, Macomb County politics has been infamous for its incestuous ways. The Vivianos, the Roccas, the Servittos, the Switalskis, the Faunces, the Millers, the Chrzanowskis – these are the names that appear over and over on our election ballots.
Husbands and wives swap jobs. Brothers and sisters feed off the family name. Sons and daughters succeed their parents with little effort, other than plastering the county landscape with campaign signs.

This is the name game. And it almost always produces a winner.
A 2X8 version of the sign

The strategy behind this is to confuse voters (“Which Viviano is that?”) and to cash in on a familiar surname.

Yet, this “all in the family” approach rose to a new level in recent days when James Maceroni unveiled his campaign plan to succeed his father, retiring county Circuit Judge Peter Maceroni.
The younger Maceroni erected dozens, probably hundreds, of identical signs that simply say: Maceroni. Judged Best.
The sign doesn’t give the candidate’s first name. It doesn’t indicate what office he’s running for. It doesn’t ask for your vote. The 4-foot by 8-foot signs feature an enormous red background with white text – just those three words.

What’s in a sign? Political consultants will say, not much. What’s in a name? In this county, a whole lot.

It seems that there’s a certain arrogance to Maceroni’s blatant emphasis on lineage. And what about the “judged best” phrase. By who? When? For what? Someone obviously thought it was a clever use of words, but it only adds to the blue-blood tone. The candidate’s campaign literature follows in the same vein.
Cynics in tune with local politics will judge this campaign tactic as reflective of an abundance of attitude, such as: “All it takes to get my daddy’s judicial seat is put my name out there.” It’s like the old-time politicians who, regardless of the subject of the news story at hand, tell reporters, “Just spell my name right.”
The sense of entitlement is what is most troubling. After all, Macomb is not blessed with several dynastic families akin to the Kennedys or the Roosevelts.

To be fair, from what I can gather James Maceroni is a respected, civic-minded attorney. He was a valued member of the Macomb County Charter Commission, which reformed county government. In addition, Maceroni, who is also related to 41-A District Judge Michael Maceroni (running unopposed for re-election), helped establish the county’s innovative Veteran’s Court.
But if his name was James Smith rather than James Maceroni, he certainly would not be the frontrunner in this race with considerable backing in the legal community.
At the same time, if he was James Smith from a certain Smith family, his opponent, assistant prosecutor Steve Fox, would not be running at all. Fox is backed by his boss, county Prosecutor Eric Smith. Eric Smith is the brother of county Commissioner Bob Smith and son of the former Clinton Township Police Chief, the late Robert Smith.
If James Maceroni was linked to that Smith family network, Fox wouldn’t dare take him on.

These are the twists and turns borne from Macomb’s pedigree politics.
Also on the November ballot for a judicial seat is assistant prosecutor Suzanne Faunce, another Prosecutor Smith favorite.
Faunce, a challenger to incumbent District Judge Dean Ausilio, who oversees Warren and Center Line cases, is the sister of Jennifer Faunce. Jennifer Faunce is a county circuit judge (unopposed in November) who previously served in the Warren district court and is a former state representative who was term-limited.
Suzanne Faunce is also the daughter of Sherman Faunce, who presided from the bench in that same district court for many years and still occasionally serves as a visiting judge there.

Not to pass judgment on the candidate, but another Faunce could join the judiciary in November and on the day after the election, many voters would not notice the difference.
Some past candidates who road the family coattails won election despite a poor reputation or weak credentials, including Sue Chrzanowski, related to current and former circuit judges, whose judicial career crashed when she was connected to a salacious murder plot.

Sometimes the clash of bloodlines produces an odd man out. In a 2010 race for circuit court, Kathy Viviano was hoping to join her brother on the bench — David Viviano, then a circuit judge, now a state Supreme Court justice – and to succeed her retiring father, Circuit Judge Antonio Viviano.
She ran against Michael Servitto, who was trying to team up with his father, Circuit Judge Michael Servitto, and make his mother proud – that’s state Court of Appeals Judge Debbie Servitto. Viviano won.
Take a look at the purebred majority on the 13-member Circuit Court that prevails: Two Switalskis, a Maceroni, a Servitto, a Faunce, a Chrzanowski, a Viviano. And the Biernat on the bench, James Jr., served with his father, James Sr., until he retired.

Some voters may have no problem with this dominance of our judicial system. Maybe this is just an example of family roots. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Others may take a look and say, this is just nuts.