Reform judicial nominations
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
Dec 28, 2009
As became evident this month, Florida gives the governor too much power over selecting judges.
Gov. Crist provided the evidence this time, but it could be any governor. The system makes it too tempting.
About two weeks ago, after intervention by Gov. Crist, the commission that screens applicants for the Florida Supreme Court added the politically connected general counsel for the Navy to the list of candidates for a high court seat. The commission changed its own rules to add Frank Jimenez, who as deputy legal counsel to Jeb Bush advocated a system to find judges who were "ideologically compatible" with Mr. Bush. The commission added Mr. Jimenez during a secret deliberation. The commission's action was definitely improper and probably illegal.
Until 2001, it almost certainly couldn't have happened. But that year, the Republican-led Legislature and Gov. Bush changed a system that had restrained the inherent politics of naming judges.
Each of Florida's 20 circuit courts and five appeals courts, as well as the state Supreme Court, has a nominating commission of nine members. The commission members interview applicants for judgeships that aren't decided by election, then recommend from three to six finalists from whom the governor chooses. In theory, the governor can't have total control because the candidates have to get past the commission.
Before 2001, though, the governor got to choose only three members of each commission. The Florida Bar picked three, and those six picked three non-lawyers. Former Gov. Jeb Bush, who never saw a part of Florida government that he didn't want to control, didn't like the system. GOP legislators complained that it gave the Bar too much power.
So the Legislature changed the system, giving the governor five appointments - an effective majority - to each nominating commission. The Bar recommends candidates for the other four commissioners, but the governor gets to approve them. Thus the governor gets to choose who will send him the choices for every judgeship in Florida. Even the president has to get his picks for the federal bench past the Senate.
Gov. Crist was using his influence on the Supreme Court nominating commission to find a rigidly conservative justice in the name of diversity. As Mr. Bush's deputy legal counsel, Mr. Jimenez proposed a system to find judicial candidates who were "ideologically compatible" with Mr. Bush. There is no Hispanic member of the high court.
So Republicans in Tallahassee may like how the system is working. But if a Democratic governor tried the same trick to find a rigidly liberal justice, Republicans would be right to howl. The Florida Bar can be as political as a governor, but the old system didn't give the Bar a majority, either. And the final three members didn't owe their appointments directly to the Bar or the governor.
It was a system that other states envied. It is a system to which Florida should return.