To an outsider, they look like rats scurrying off the Titanic.

Nearly two years after local Dems swept the 2006 elections, seizing on a tidal wave of changing demographics and voter fury with the presidency of George W. Bush, Republicans are abandoning ship, provoking fresh questions about why bench elections are partisan in the first place.

The Dallas Morning News’ Gromer Jeffers reported that County Court at Law Judge Mark Greenberg, formerly a Republican, will be leaving the party. The civil jurist, who ascended to the bench in 1998, was scheduled to make the announcement that he’s now a Democrat at the party’s annual Labor Day picnic.

According to Jeffers, Greenberg’s defection marks the fifth time a Dallas Republican judge switched party affiliations. Last week, Republican Criminal Court Judge Elizabeth Crowder said she's leaving the GOP as well.

Lately, life's been vexing for local Republican judges. Following the 2006 elections, state District Judge John Creuzot switched back to the Democratic party years after he began on the bench as a Democrat. Then when the political winds turned to the Republicans, he switched over to their side. Now he's back where he started. Got that?

It's easy to be cynical about our judges here. Evidently, Greenberg realized that after 20 years of practicing law, voila!, he's really a Democrat after all. Surely, he reexamined his own ideology about government and society and independently came to the conclusion that he needed to switch parties. Right?

Or, in a more reality-based scenario, Greenberg realizes that calling himself a Democrat is the best way to make sure people keep calling him "Your Honor." On his profile page on the Dallas Bar Association website, the Texas Tech law grad said that he has “no plans to ever leave the bench.”

And really it’s not clear why he should. In the bar’s 2005 poll of Dallas lawyers, Greenberg scored remarkably well with higher approval ratings than most of his peers.

So why again should Greenberg leave his fate in the hands of a fickle local electorate? Let's be honest here: most voters who will show up at the polls in November won't know a thing about an obscure county judge and will instead be focusing on elections higher up the ballot. But if they're voting straight ticket -- like they did two years ago--they might just be dumping out the good officials with the bad.

In an interview with Texas Watchdog last week, Dallas County GOP Chair Jonathan Neerman questioned the fairness of partisan elections for judges. He raises a fair point — even if he never would have brought it up two years ago.

Really, it shouldn't mean a thing if Greenberg, who largely presides over low-stakes civil disputes, is a Republican or Democrat. Party ideology matters at the highest levels of the judiciary where one's view of the scope of government, for example, could inform how you rule on a landmark eminent domain case. But in a local court where a judge might be deciding whether to award the former partner in a small insurance firm 50 percent of all future profits -- or just 40 percent -- why does party affiliation matter?

Update: Burnt Orange Report's view on the switch.