Rhode Island Judicial Nominating Commission

The Providence Journal reports the law governing the Judicial Nominating Commission sets out that “no person shall be appointed at any time to serve more than one term” on the commission.  Yet Governor Chafee’s latest appointee to the commission, D. Faye Sanders, previously served on the commission.  Chafee selected Sanders in January from a list provided by Senate Minority Leader Dennis Algiere.  “At the end of the day, I was having trouble finding people willing to serve,” Algiere said.

New Jersey Judicial Selection

New Jersey Supreme Court justices are nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Senate for an initial 7-year term, after which the governor may renominate the justice, subject to Senate consent, for a position until age 70.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

[Chief Justice Stuart] Rabner's seven-year term ends in June, and [Governor Chris] Christie has not announced plans to renominate him. While the Republican governor hasn't said he will remove Rabner, a Democrat, he has spoken of a need to reshape the state's high court, which he decries as "out of control" and unaccountable to the public. Last summer, he publicly criticized one of Rabner's decisions.

Christie previously bucked decades of precedent by taking two other justices off the court, sparking protest from the legal community and legislative Democrats.

In 2010, Christie did not renominate John Wallace, a Gloucester County Democrat and the court's only African American. It was the first time in modern history that a sitting justice had not been granted tenure. Rabner issued a statement to judges saying he was disappointed by the decision. Christie has since repeated the move with a Republican, Helen Hoens.
The Wallace decision set off a war with the Democratic-controlled Senate, which has blocked most of Christie's high court appointments, resulting in two vacancies.

Florida, Minnesota and Alaska Judicial Selection Bills

These various bills summarized by Bill Raftery seem generally to fit a pattern of Red State Republicans pushing for more democratic judicial selection methods while Blue State Democrats push for more lawyer-controlled judicial selection methods.

Chief Justice Accuses Legislators of Tying Court Funding to Judicial Selection Bill

Kansas Chief Justice Lawton Nuss writes in today's Lawrence Journal World that legislators told the Kansas Bar Association and Kansas District Judges Association that if they supported a bill to reform the Kansas Supreme Court selection process, that would "would induce the Legislature to give judicial branch employees their first pay raise in more than four years."

Chief Justice Nuss adds "I told our 1500 employees that while the justices supported the pay raises, we opposed the trade. Later, one of the crafting legislators publicly denied any linkage between the overdue pay raises and selection of justices and demanded my apology."

Minnesota Bill to Change from Elected Judges to Nominating Commission

Minnesota Judicial Selection

Law and Culture

The Star Tribune explains that "Currently, most judges do come into office by gubernatorial appointment, but there are rare elections for open seats without an appointee. Once in office, judges stand for re-election and can be challenged by opponents. Most run unopposed."  This has always struck me as part of the "Minnesota nice" culture.  Although officially Minnesota's high court has elections, it seems common for judges to retire mid-term which gives the governor an opportunity to appoint a judge to fill the unexpired term.  Then that incumbent runs un-opposed in the next election.  Contested elections seem to be more common at the supreme court level but the the incumbent usually wins handily and the closest in 2012 was a 12 point victory for incumbent Justice David Stras.  

Mandatory Retirement

Some mid-term judicial retirements seem due to the mandatory retirement age statute, which requires judges to leave the bench at the end of the month they turn 70, as opposed to at the end of the term. See Minnesota Code sections 490.125 and 490.121(21)(d)

A bill to move from this system to a Missouri Plan, nominating commission system advanced out of a senate subcommittee. 

For more on Minnesota judicial selection, see here

Politics on the Bench—Iowa and Beyond

Marsha Ternus lost her Iowa Supreme Court position and complained about spending on judicial retention elections.  Now, Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute responds:

"it’s the politics Ternus didn’t mention that seems to have colored her idealized view of judging, shielding her from a deeper account of why our courts have become so politicized. Far from the angels being all on one side, it turns out that Iowa’s “nonpartisan” judicial screening commission and gubernatorial appointment process is deeply political. As a July 2010 report by The Iowa Republican documents, not only were all seven members of the Iowa Supreme Court, save Ternus, nominated by Democratic governors, from lists presented by the commission, but all were or had been Democrats or had made significant contributions to the party or its candidates. All seven, in short, came from one party."

I address Iowa Supreme Court selection and the same-sex marriage case here in a video of a Federalist Society panel in Des Moines.

When Is A Judgeship Vacant?

"When is a judicial office vacant for purposes of allowing a governor to fill the vacancy?" asks Gavel to Gavel's Bill Raftery, who discusses a Florida bill to answer this question.

Big Money Democrats Fund Republican Candidates for Texas Supreme Court

According to Patricia Kilday Hart in the Houston Chronicle plaintiffs' trial lawyers are "raising campaign cash for a slate of Republican primary challengers to incumbent Texas Supreme Court justices, drawing largely on traditional Democratic donors."  Why would these big money Democrats fund Republicans?  "[S]ince 1994, no Democrat has been elected statewide in Texas."

The primary challengers and incumbents are: former Rep. Robert Talton vs. Chief Justice Nathan Hecht; lawyer Joe Pool Jr. vs. Justice Jeff Brown; and Appeals Judge Sharon McCally, who is challenging Justice Phil Johnson.

Patricia Kilday Hart in The Houston Chronicle reports: "Gov. Rick Perry sent an email this week supporting Hecht, Brown and Johnson, whom he appointed to positions on the court. He warned that 'liberal personal injury trial attorneys ... want to buy judges who would return Texas to the bad old days of Jackpot justice - huge and senseless jury verdicts that will bankrupt companies, take away jobs and ruin our economy.'"

Texas Supreme Court Elections

Texas uses partisan elections to select its high court.  In 2014, four seats on the court are up for election.  Three of those four are the subject of Republican primaries March 4.  Here is the line up of candidates and a TV attack ad.

Selection of Kansas District Court Chief Judge

The Topeka Capital Journal reports on two bills in the Senate Judiciary Committee.  One would end the Supreme Court's authority to choose who the chief judge is in each of the state's 31 judicial districts, in favor of allowing the state's trial judges to vote.  "A separate bill also would strip the Supreme Court of its administrative authority over the entire judicial branch's budget in favor of allowing 31 separate judicial budgets that would be administered by each district."

One of the more interesting comments, by someone called "doubltap", says "This is just payback for the [Supreme Court of Kansas]  not minding it's own damned business on school funding. If the liberal demo appointments had kept their noses out of the K-12 funding issues, they would not be getting their butts kicked by the legislature today. But, of course, the whole purpose of [Gov. Sebelius] appointing her cronies to the courts was to facilitate quid pro quo for the KNEA, who contributed to heavily to her campaign. Hopefully, Kansans will get to vote on a constitutional amendment this November which will eradicate the qualitative language that currently give this bunch of judicial activists a hook to hang their hats on, and we can get back to the legislature, not the court's liberal stooges, determining proper funding for our schools."

Effects of Ending the Filibuster for Federal Judicial Nominees

In November, US Senate Democrats triggered the nuclear option of doing away with the filibuster for all judicial nominees except the Supreme Court. "But so far, removing that procedural hurdle hasn't changed much in the Senate, where there hasn't been a single vote on a district court nominee since December." the Huffington Post reports.

Tennessee Judicial Selection Controversy

Current Tennessee system of judicial appointments, evaluations and retention elections for appellate courts is unconstitutional, according to this op-ed in the Tennessean. Law review articles on point by Vanderbilt Law Prof Brian Fitzpatrick here and here

New Mexico Judges Switch From Republican to Democrat

Interesting politics, involving Republican Governor and VP mentionee Susana Martinez, reported by Las Cruces Sun-News

Iowa Supreme Court Selection Continues to be Contested

Among Governor Branstad’s recent appointees to the state Judicial Nominating Commission is former Rep. Betty De Boef, who was one of five legislators to file articles of impeachment against four of the justices involved in the same-sex marriage case, Varnum v. Brein.  Until 2010, a sitting judge had never lost a retention election. However, during the November 2, 2010 election, three sitting Supreme Court justices: Marsha Ternus, David Baker and Michael Streit, were voted out of office in reaction to Varnum.

My discussion of Iowa Supreme Court selection is here with Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson, Rep. Chris Hagenow, Rep. Kurt Swaim, Iowa Judicial Nominating Commissioner Guy R. Cook, and others discuss Iowa Supreme Court selection, Feb. 22, 2011, at an event hosted by the Federalist Society, Iowa Lawyers Chapter.

Diversity Push by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Alliance for Justice and NY Times

Progressive group Alliance for Justice, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the New York Times seem to be coordinating a push for diversity on the federal bench--meaning "judicial nominees with diverse professional backgrounds – including those who have worked as lawyers for public interest groups, litigated civil rights cases and served as public defenders."  First Alliance for Justice issued a report.  Then the NY Times praised it.  Then Alliance for Justice hosted an event with Elizabeth Warren and cited  the NY Times coverage of its earlier report.

Video here

More video of E. Warren here