judicial selection – Page 8 – The Interdependent Third Branch

Five former Pennsylvania governors renew push for merit selection

Former governors Dick Thornburgh, Tom Ridge, Mark Schweiker, Ed Rendell, and Tom Corbett have published an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, calling for the merit selection of all judges in the Keystone State. Their position goes beyond even the current proposed legislation, which would extend merit selection only to the state’s appellate judges. The governors note:

Merit selection is not a panacea. We are hardly naïve about today’s political realities. Nonetheless, having in place a system by which any qualified candidate can apply for an open seat on the appellate bench and be considered by a bipartisan, diverse group of citizens from across the commonwealth — a group tasked with evaluating the strength of that candidate’s professional and personal qualifications to serve — is a far better system than one in which random ballot position, fund-raising, and campaigning are determining factors.

The op-ed also cites to the excellent work being done by Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts to make the case for changing the state’s judicial selection system.

Pennsylvania legislators push for merit selection of state judges

State Representatives Bryan Cutler and Madeleine Dean have proposed an amendment to the Pennsylvania constitution that would eliminate direct elections for state appellate judges. Instead, judges would be chosen by merit selection. Under the plan, a 13-member panel would choose five nominees for a judicial vacancy, and send that list to the governor. The governor would then select one of the five nominees, and the state senate would confirm the final selection. Judges would then face periodic retention elections. The proposal mirrors many of the best qualities of existing merit selection systems.

Similar bills have been proposed in the past (including many by Rep. Cutler), without much success. But you can’t move the needle if you don’t keep trying, and Pennsylvania’s direct elections of judges have not been anything to write home about. Good luck to the proponents this time around.

Lawyer cleared of voter fraud conviction seeks judgeship in Brooklyn

John O’Hara’s 1997 voter fraud conviction–for allegedly casting a ballot in the wrong district–was overturned just a few months ago. O’Hara is now seeking to take on Brooklyn’s Democratic machine:

O’Hara’s slate for the Democratic primary in September includes himself and five other candidates, as part of what he is calling a “rage against the machine” to challenge the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s status quo of choosing who gets the gavel.

The party’s Judicial Screening Committee nominates a candidate through the screening process and then backs them — but the process is far from independent, and O’Hara’s slate of six is looking to take on the machine, he said.

“Because the whole so-called independent judicial screening panel is not very independent. We have nothing to do with that,” he said. “Machine-backed candidates, those are the people we are running against. We are all independent candidates.”

North Carolina Court of Appeals update

Last month I reported on a fast-moving battle between North Carolina’s Republican legislature and Democratic governor over the state’s Court of Appeals. The legislature proposed a bill to shrink the size of the court in order to deny the governor additional appointments. In response, a court of appeals judge took early retirement so that the governor could make an interim appointment before the bill was passed. Literally fifteen minutes later, the governor appointed John Arrowood, a former judge who had lost his seat in a previous election, to the Court of Appeals for a second time.

Now it appears that the saga will continue for the next two years. Andrew Heath, a trial judge appointed last December by the previous governor, has announced that he will challenge Judge Arrowood for his seat in the 2018 election. Stay tuned.

GOP Senators consider modifications to blue-slip practice

For a century, the U.S. Senate has followed an unwritten “blue-slip” practice, in which Senators are permitted to block federal district and circuit court nominees from their home states from advancing to a confirmation vote, simply by declining to endorse the nominees. Viewed in the most positive light, the practice allows Senators to exercise informed discretion over the nominee’s fit with a local court and local constituency. Viewed more cynically, the blue-slip procedure provides Senators with essentially unchecked power to block nominees for any reason, no matter how ideological, arbitrary, or mean-spirited.

Senate Republicans are now openly talking about modifying the practice, to extend blue-slip privileges only over district court nominees. This means that a single Senator could not hold up confirmation hearings over individuals nominated to serve on the U.S. Courts of Appeal. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) explained: “I think there’s a difference between the blue-slip application at the district court level where the courts is contained wholly within a state as opposed to a circuit court which covers multiple states…. The idea that an individual senator could veto in effect a nominee at the circuit court level is really unprecedented and I think it needs to be carefully looked at.”

Roundup on Pennsylvania’s judicial elections

Pennsylvania voters will go to the polls this coming Tuesday to choose their state judges in their traditional odd-year, contested, partisan elections. Here are some of the late-breaking stories from across the state:

The Philadelphia Democratic City Committee has had a rough few days. First, it endorsed ten candidates for what it thought was ten open positions on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas (the state trial court). But the state Supreme Court subsequently cut the number of open seats to nine, leaving the Committee with one too many endorsements. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Bar Association announced its intent to hand out flyers with its own endorsements — based on neutral evaluations, not party affiliation — at the same times and locations as the Democratic City Committee.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has the lowdown on every judicial candidate in the city (Democrat and Republican) here.
24 candidates are vying for six judgeships in Northampton County. The job pays $90,000 per year, requires the judge to perform weddings and handle traffic tickets. A law degree is not required.
Candidates in a single trial court race in Westmoreland County have collectively spent more than $268,000 — nearly twice what the job pays.
As we reported earlier this week, Martin Sheen continues to stump for one judge seeking reelection. Nothing particularly wrong with that, although Sheen has seen fit to blur the endorsement lines between his real identity and that of the president he once played on TV.
An Erie newspaper has editorialized against the current election system, noting that it is “no way to staff a competent bench.”
And the Reading Eagle offers an editorial endorsement of the Pennsylvania Bar’s candidate evaluations.

Finally, in a very positive development, the proposed legislation to shift Pennsylvania from partisan judicial elections to a merit selection system gained some traction when the House Judiciary Committee approved a measure to place the issue before the voters. There is still a long road ahead, but it can be done. And voters in other states have proven more than capable of understanding the benefits of merit selection.

Tuesday should be interesting.

Several new federal judicial nominees have state court experience, and that’s great news

On Monday, the President nominated ten individuals for federal judgeships — five on the circuit courts of appeal, four on the district courts, and one on the U.S. Court of Claims. Three of the ten (Joan Larsen of Michigan, David Stras of Minnesota, and David Nye of Idaho) currently sit on state courts — Larsen and Stras on their state supreme courts, and Nye on his state’s trial bench.

The value of state court experience for federal judges has not been discussed much, but it should be. An intimate knowledge of state law and state court operations is surprisingly useful for the federal bench. And appointing federal judges from the state courts has valuable ripple effects for the states as well. More after the jump.

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Imaginary president stumps for real judicial candidate

In advance of this month’s statewide judicial elections, actor Martin Sheen has appeared on YouTube and television, advocating for the reelection of Pennsylvania judge Joseph Cosgrove. That Sheen would support Cosgrove is not surprising: they are apparently old friends and political allies, and Cosgrove evidently represented Sheen for time when he was in private practice.

But the ads are not just an endorsement from Martin Sheen, the actor. Sheen deliberately blurs the line between his real-life persona and that of Josiah Bartlet, the fictional president from “The West Wing.” Here is the YouTube endorsement, featuring a “decree” signed by Bartlet.

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President to nominate ten for federal judgeships today

A few more details here.

Among the rumored names are several state supreme court justices. If that pans out, we’ll have more to say in the coming days on the impact of state-level experience on the federal bench.

New head for Florida’s federal judicial nominating panel

In Florida, as in many other states, the state’s U.S. Senators have created a nominating panel to recommend potential nominees for the federal judicial openings. As part of the larger vacancy crisis, Florida currently has seven openings at the federal district court level. The state’s Lieutenant Governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera, has been chosen as the new head of the nominating panel.

Let’s hope that the panel does good work, President Trump takes advantage of their pre-screening process, Senators Rubio and Nelson help shepherd the nominees through the Senate, and the people of Florida are able to enjoy a full-strength federal bench in short order.