BLACK lawmakers made a point of saying they wouldn’t stage another walkout last month if the Legislature failed to elect Debra Gammons to the Circuit Court.

Little wonder.

They didn’t support her.

Only two of seven black senators and seven of 24 black representatives voted for the only African-American candidate in the three-way race. She lost.

Rep. Leon Howard said he and other black legislators concluded that Ms. Gammons, an assistant city attorney in Greenville, “was not one who shared our views and philosophies.”

Mr. Howard said he was first concerned when he saw a quote from Ms. Gammons criticizing the caucus’ “narrow-minded” walkout in February when the Legislature rejected the black candidate in another judicial race. He came away from her subsequent meeting with the caucus unconvinced that she “really sees the things we see in terms of disparity and lack of respect for African-Americans in the judicial system.”

Rep. Todd Rutherford, one of Ms. Gammons’ nine African-American supporters, said he thought most of his colleagues voted for other candidates because they knew she couldn’t win and wanted “to still be a player in the race.” But he said she was hurt by the fact that she ran in the 2000 and 2004 Democratic primaries against Ralph Anderson, a popular black senator.

That didn’t keep Sen. Anderson from voting for Ms. Gammons. But it’s not hard to see why members of the Black Caucus, who are all Democrats and include some of the most liberal legislators, wouldn’t be comfortable with her.

Earlier this year, Ms. Gammons said our state’s lack of female judges was a bigger problem than the lack of black judges. That’s numerically indisputable, but her comments seemed to downplay the racial disparity.

Likewise, it’s hard to argue with the point of a 2003 op-ed she penned for The State, “We must teach our girls not to be victimized women.” But many saw it as an Altmanesque attack on victims and were outraged by her suggestion that women should “learn how to fight and how to accurately shoot a gun” to prevent domestic violence.

Back-to-back columns in The State in 1996 sounded even more like something you’d hear on Fox News. After my predecessors on the editorial page changed her reference to “Negros” to “African-Americans” in a column saying high black incarceration rates were the result of guilt, not racism, she wrote a column attacking the term “African-American.”

Mr. Howard said some members of the Black Caucus worried that declining to support Ms. Gammons would hurt the effort to put more black judges on the bench, but he thinks it does just the opposite.

“I think the credibility of the Black Caucus increased by not jumping on board with Miss Debra,” he told me. “I think we sent the message to the public that we’re not just looking for black judges; were looking for judges who are qualified and whose philosophy we can support.”

The vote does make an important point at a time when some lawmakers and many members of the public believe that those of us who want to see more African-American judges value skin color over competency. As Mr. Howard explains it, the caucus is not out “to put people on the bench just because they’re black; we want the best individual whether they’re black or white.” The problem is when the best person — or even an equally good person — is black, and the white candidate still wins.

But the vote also raises important questions that have not been part of the public debate: If black legislators oppose a black candidate because of her politics, isn’t it possible that some white legislators oppose black candidates because of their politics, and not their skin color? And if it’s OK for black legislators to oppose a black candidate who’s too “conservative,” isn’t it OK for white legislators to oppose a black candidate who’s too “liberal”?

Mr. Rutherford dismisses the idea that political philosophy plays a role in judicial races. He says it’s impossible to guess whether a candidate will be a “liberal” or “conservative” judge. “I’m a former prosecutor,” he says, “but I don’t know what that makes me.”

I believe more strongly than most Americans that judges should leave their personal views outside the courtroom and apply the law even when they disagree with it. But especially at the trial court level, our system of justice allows room for discretion, and actually forces judges to draw on their personal philosophy. A judge who always saw himself as a Republican, for example, is more likely to throw the book at a criminal defendant than one who always saw himself as a Democrat — and that’s the decision that makes far too many of our legislators comfortable.

This political problem is compounded by the way we judge people we don’t know. If the most liberal legislators are campaigning for a candidate, it’s human nature to assume that candidate is a liberal. And for many white legislators, Mr. Howard’s explanation of why he and other black legislators didn’t support Ms. Gammons will validate that assumption.

Mr. Howard started our conversation by dismissing House Judiciary Chairman Jim Harrison’s offer to help elect black judges whom “he deems to be good black judges,” saying that “we’re not looking for him to select Clarence Thomas and shove him down our throats.”

I sympathize. But the fact is that the voters have given Republicans a commanding majority in the State House. It is absolutely appropriate to demand that they do a better job electing black judges. But I’m not sure they have any more obligation than the Black Caucus to support candidates whose political philosophy they find anathema.

Ms. Scoppe can be reached at cscoppe@thestate.com or at (803) 771-8571.