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Mar

29

Court of Appeals: once you stop using maiden name by itself, you can’t go back


At least not for purposes of running for elected position.

I’ve got more on this from last week, with a batch of first-person reporting. Right now, I’m going to sleep on it but I can tell you this: I have a hard time believing that when I wake up, I’m all of a sudden going to agree with the Court of Appeals. A shanda on them for making it so hard for women in the 21st Century.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:58 am March 29th, 2006 in Politics 

Comments

5 Responses to “Court of Appeals: once you stop using maiden name by itself, you can’t go back”

  1. 1 Shannon on March 29th, 2006 5:40 pm

    That is so ridiculous, it hurts my head to think of it. Besides, even Miss Manners acknowledges that women may use their names differently according to the situation at hand. I plan to use my future husband’s name socially even if I have to stick to the maiden name professionally (wouldn’t want to confuse the searchers on Amazon!), and I don’t want to give up my current middle name, as so many women do. Bah. Stupid court!

  2. 2 Jill on March 29th, 2006 5:45 pm

    You have no idea. I’ve got a copy of the appellate court’s opinion. I’m not saying that the law shouldn’t deal with this issue, but they’re not dealing with it as reality, they’re dealing with it as though it were 1950, no make that pre-19th Amendment. Bad decision, very bad.

    All the more reason to get the GOP out of the Secretary of State’s office.

  3. 3 Shannon on March 30th, 2006 3:49 pm

    Agreed.

  4. 4 Anonymous on March 30th, 2006 9:10 pm

    The appeals court may have a small point about the fact that Jennifer was registered to vote under one name when she circulated the petitions and later sumbitted a name change to the board of elections.

    Otherwise, the opinion is bogus. I also recall a line of cases that say that you can use more than one name at a time.

    By the way, all three appellate judges on the panel (Gallagher, Kilbane, Blackmon) are Democrats.

  5. 5 Jill on March 31st, 2006 1:45 am

    True on your first point Anon, except that here’s the thing about that:

    She wanted her driver’s license to say Jennifer Martinez Atzberger. The DMV said nope, too many letters. They told her to drop off two letters and suggested that she drop off “ez” on Martinez. She’s like, Ummm, my name isn’t Jennifer Martin Atzberger. So then they said, just do Jennifer M. Atzberger. And that’s what her voter registration then became.

    Also – about the judges, no offense intended, but at least two of the three have last names that are well-known around here. This probably sounds extreme, but they almost should have recused themselves, especially when you consider that their opinion NEVER NEVER NEVER touches the part of the cases that deal with name changes connected to defrauding the voters into thinking you’re someone you aren’t (like Scott Miller did by trying to add Russo into his name).

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