Litigation

Bills to Alter Merit Selection Advance in AZ

By Peter Hardin

Two measures that would alter the way judges are chosen under Arizona’s system of merit selection have advanced from legislative committees.

One of the bills would ask voters to decide whether to require Senate confirmation of judges. It  would revise judicial nominating commission membership and would eliminate retention elections, according to a summary provided by Gavel to Gavel, a publication of the National Center for State Courts.

The second would  strip from the state Bar a role in selecting some members of the nominating commissions that recommend judicial finalists to the governor for appointment.

Under current law, these commissions include five lawyer members and 10 members who are not lawyers. The lawyer members are nominated by the State Bar of Arizona’s board of governors and are appointed by the governor, subject to Senate confirmation, according to the American Judicature Society. Arizona’s screening commissions currently recommend appellate court nominees and nominees for Maricopa and Pima County trial courts.

Moreover, a lobbyist for the Arizona Judges Association, Peter Dunn, lit into a “myth” that the State Bar has too much influence over nominating commissions, according to an Arizona Republic article.

“A minority of the commission’s members are lawyers, and the non-lawyer members certainly aren’t taking a backseat to the lawyer members,” he said. “Conservative Republicans seem to want to change or get rid of a system that is really working well.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 07, 2011 (boomark / email).