CA: Horns locked over judge appointments

Oakland Tribune ^ | August 23, 2006 | Josh Richman

[calcowgirl]

Assembly Democrats and the governor are battling over judicial appointments, with overworked county courts caught in the middle.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, last week ordered new Superior Court judgeships for 2006-07 cut from 50 to 25; the 50 were to include three for San Joaquin and one each for Contra Costa and Solano counties. The money remains in the budget. Nunez ordered the cut in a separate bill authorizing the new slots.

Steve Maviglio, Nunez's spokesman, said Tuesday it's mainly due to whom Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been naming to the bench.

"The governor's appointments look like they've been made from a Georgia country club," he said — minorities, particularly African-Americans, are underrepresented despite a "handshake agreement" made during budget negotiations that appointments would reflect the state's diversity.

"Somebody who led the impeachment trial for President Clinton is not what the speaker had in mind in terms of diversity," Maviglio noted. The governor named former Rep. Jim Rogan to the Orange County Superior Court as of Oct. 1.

Despite this comment, Maviglio insisted Nunez's diversity concerns are of ethnicity, not politics.

But the California Republican Lawyers Association last week issued a news release expressing relief that since its February complaint, the governor has boosted his rate of naming Republican judges from 50 percent to 70 percent. Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Democratic Gov. Gray Davis named judges about 90 percent along party lines, it noted.

"Beyond party affiliations, he was appointing a large number of criminal defense lawyers, including a former public defender whose claim to fame was specializing in opposing the death penalty," CRLA chairman Steve Baric said in the release, vowing to keep pressing Schwarzenegger to name conservative judges "who support the death penalty, property rights and victims' rights. ... This is a great beginning but the governor has a long way to go to catch up to Gov. Wilson's record."

Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Sabrina Demayo Lockhart on Tuesday said Rogan is "a highly respected jurist, and the governor is proud to appoint him to the bench and believes he will do a terrific job for the people of Orange County."

As for ethnic diversity, she said, the governor's percentages on naming African-American, Latino and Asian/Pacific Islander judges exceeds those minorities' percentage representations within the State Bar of California membership from which judges must be chosen.

Maviglio retorted, "Playing the percentage game misses the point" — many qualified minority lawyers aren't being named to judicial posts, he said. He provided Judicial Council data showing 21.6 percent of Davis' judicial appointments were minorities, compared to 13.2 percent for Wilson and 15.5 percent for Schwarzenegger through May 5.

Kate Howard, the Judicial Council of California's governmental affairs director, said the issue was "very high on the list" of topics she's tackling in Sacramento this week, and Maviglio and Lockhart said their offices will try to hash it out before the legislative session ends Aug. 31.

"The need for judges ... throughout the state is absolutely critical," she said. "The courts are trying to manage crushing caseloads."

Riverside County, for example, twice in recent years has had to suspend its civil court calendars for weeks at a time to handle a burgeoning criminal caseload. Central Valley counties with growing populations are in a bind, too.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Presiding Judge Richard Giuliani said his court will lose one of its three new judgeships this year should Nunez's cut stand, even as it strains along with only one family-court judge and "a crime rate that's going through the roof."

"I don't think anyone can deny this is a desperate need," he said, adding lawmakers should "be Californians before they're Democrats and Republicans."

Giuliani — a Wilson appointee — said his bench already is diverse, and adding more bodies is paramount now: "I don't care if they're Martians — if they've gotten through law school and have been lawyers for 10 years and have gotten through the process to be deemed qualified as judges, we want them."

[calcowgirl]

But the California Republican Lawyers Association last week issued a news release expressing relief that since its February complaint, the governor has boosted his rate of naming Republican judges from 50 percent to 70 percent. Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Democratic Gov. Gray Davis named judges about 90 percent along party lines, it noted.

Nunez should be celebrating. Schwarzenegger's record:

Republican:           94   54.0%
Democrat:             60   34.5%
Decline-to-state:     20   11.5%
Total:               174  100.0%

[calcowgirl]

Associated Press coverage:

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/15353689.htm

SACRAMENTO - Democrats are accusing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of breaking a deal to appoint more minorities to the bench and have responded by cutting the number of new judges that would be authorized by pending legislation from 50 to 25.

They suggest that the governor has been trying to appease his conservative base by appointing more Republican judges, who tend to be white, despite a "gentleman's agreement" to create a more diverse California judiciary.

"There haven't been a lot of appointments since he signed the budget, but the few that have come through have been a lot more conservative than any in the past," Fredericka McGee, general counsel for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said Thursday.

(snip)

[gidget7]

"Somebody who led the impeachment trial for President Clinton is not what the speaker had in mind in terms of diversity," Maviglio noted



Diversity is a dirty word, and has no place in appointing judges. Qualification and real understanding of the actual constitution are the ONLY qualifications that should be taken into consideration. Diversity is going to kill America.