Gavel Grab

 

Arizona’s  merit selection system for picking judges could be revised to require state Senate confirmation of judges, if a process for a statewide ballot referendum is launched–and if such a referendum were to gain voter approval.

Last year,  the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform commended Arizona’s merit selection process for picking judges as the nation’s best (see Gavel Grab.)

The state is home for retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who has traveled widely to champion Arizona’s kind of system for choosing judges. It  seeks to insulate the courtroom from politics. But critics have asked a state Senate committee to consider revising the appointment and retention system in order, they say, to prevent judicial activism, according to an Associated Press article.

Len Munsil, the 2008 Republican nominee for governor, explained, “When judges and lawyers pick the new judges, the temptation to judicial activism is almost insurmountable, as the intended checks and balances of the system have effectively been removed.”

Justice O’Connor, on the other hand, wrote to the state Senate Judiciary Committee, “We have an excellent judiciary at present, and in my opinion it would be against the best interests of Arizona to increase the partisanship in the selection of its judges.”

Currently  judges on the Supreme Court, two appellate courts and trial courts in and around Phoenix and Tucson are named through merit selection. Judicial selection commissions hold public meetings, and a list of candidates is forwarded to the governor, who selects the judges, according to a Legal Newsline report. Following a two-year term, judges face voters in retention elections.

Critics want to require Senate confirmation of the governor’s picks, and reconfirmation by the Senate every four years. For it to appear on the ballot in November, a resolution to revise the system would have to pass the House and Senate first (state capital in photo above.)

Arizona Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch told the AP she feared the proposal would politicize the process and make judges think about making senators happy, instead of judging by the law:

“That’s not how the rule of law is supposed to operate…There ceases to be a rule of law at that point.”

You can learn more about appointment/retention systems from Justice at Stake’s issues page.