I recently published a long, and I think somewhat damning analysis of the record of Kings County Democratic Leader Vito Lopez in the area of selecting Democratic Party nominees for judicial office. Given that it is a subject so sleep inducing even to the average insider that much of it can be forgotten instantly, I will rehash the high points.
For several years, the implementation of an Independent Judicial Screening Panel by the Kings County Democratic Party for its candidates has been considered by supporters of Lopez to be one of his crowning achievements, at least when his supporters are talking to the press. Even some of his critics will grudgingly acknowledge this.
In the wake of the Gerry Garson scandal and the Clarence Norman indictments, strenuous efforts were undertaken by Reform District Leaders Alan Fleishman and Jo Anne Simon, and Regular District Leader Lew Fidler, to create an Independent Screening Panel for the Party’s judicial candidates. Despite the vehement opposition of other Regulars, including District Leader Al Vann and Annette Robinson, the measure eventually passed.
The panel, like all efforts to reform a political process to select the person who will receive a
prestigious position, is undeniably imperfect (the “independent” screening panels used by the Mayor and the Governor are also undeniably imperfect). Some have complained that the Brooklyn panel’s rules differ in significant ways from that of the similar panel in Manhattan; ironically, most of the difference had come at the suggestion of Manhattanites dissatisfied with the imperfections in their own panel’s procedures.
At the Supreme Court level, the panels had real teeth; under the Brooklyn Party’s rules one, with one very limited exception, which I will discuss later, one cannot be nominated at the Party’s Judicial Nominating Convention unless one was approved by the Screening Panel.
At the Civil Court level, the panel has a limited purpose. Since anyone is free to circulate a petition for an opening, regardless of what the panel says, the panel’s decisions regarding Civil Court slots have only one internal effect: the Brooklyn Democratic Party is no longer allowed to print or bind any nominating petitions which contain judicial candidates not approved by the panel.
Initially, this had an impact; in 2005, the panel actually rejected a candidate who was the personal choice of Vito Lopez. Further, the panel generally approves more candidates than there are slots, and has not shown demonstrable political bias in judging Civil Court candidates by their political affiliation.
But more important than the internal impact is the external one; since the implementation of the Independent Panel, there has not been one Civil Court primary where a candidate approved by the panel has lost to one who was not.
That is what Joe Biden would call a “big fucking deal.”
Are the panels perfect?
No, they tend to heavily give weight to the prejudices of the various wings of the County’s legal establishment. Those wings include legal aid and public interest lawyers, and various ethnic associations. The panels are by no means lily-white; but they do tend to reflect the concerns of those who appear in Court for a living, perhaps sometimes to the detriment of other considerations. And sometimes there appears to be a bit of logrolling amongst the various factions.
Sometimes, in my humble opinion, the panel has done injustices.
However, no one has ever posited any alternative method of performing such a function in an elective system. And, in fact, the equivalent panels which stand guard over appointed judgeships usually have the same establishment biases, except that they are less likely to have the diversity of the Kings County Panel.
Ironically, it was the logrolling and the concomitant deference to the strong position of one particular faction that led to the one and only instance where a candidate rejected by the panel received a party nomination–though not in violation of the rules. .
In 2004, one of the sitting judges up for renomination was Louis Marrero, a Republican who received a 1990 nomination for the bench as part of some obscure deal, was up for renomination. As should have been anticipated from the time of his original nomination, Judge Marrero was a bit conservative for some tastes, including mine. He also attracted the unfavorable attention on the Screening Panel of the Legal Aid Society and its allies, who objected to Justice Marrero’s propensity to hand down perfectly legal sentences they thought were too harsh. They objected so strongly that the rest of the panel went along and Justice Marrero’s was found unqualified by the 2004 Screening Panel.
I would have opposed Marrero’s nomination in 1990, when his conservative views were a legitimate line of inquiry. But to object to the renomination of an otherwise competent sitting judge based on his ideology was a striking attack on judicial independence. Liberals who were rightfully outraged by the hi-tech lynching of Lorin Duckman for making a perfectly defensible bail decision that went terribly wrong, or by George Pataki’s refusal to renominate George Bundy Smith to the Court of Appeals, should have been equally outraged by the decision to punish Marrero for doing his job as he thought the law dictated.
The new reforms allowed the party to renominate a sitting Supreme Court Justice even if rejected by the panel. Both Chief Judge Judith Kaye and Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman were said to have made their feeling known in no uncertain terms. The Judicial powers that be take a dim view of not renominating sitting Supreme Court Judges. In fact, when Bronx Democratic boss Stanley Friedman was convicted of corruption during the 80s, his refusal to renominate two sitting Supreme Court Justices was cited during his sentencing.
This had to be weighing heavily on the mind of then County Leader Clarence Norman.
A movement to deny Marrero renomination drew some steam, attracting the support of some who were asleep at the switch in 1990 when the Marrero deal should have been stopped in the first place, but Marrero was renominated.
The story is notable only because it is an exception provided for in the rules, it took place the first year the new reform was in existence, and the circumstance has never reoccurred.
There has been, as I documented, criticism that Lopez has been making ends run around the Democratic Party Judicial Screening Panel; in two cases I noted the end-runs were arguable; in one it was undeniable.
But those end-runs (or purported end-runs) have only taken places in the races where candidates are nominated by the voters in primaries, so at least there is a theoretical cure for that problem.
THEY HAVE NEVER TAKEN PLACE AT THE SUPREME COURT LEVEL.
At least in the one Court where the nomination is determined solely by party officials, the Screening Panels have had a real impact. Other than the Marrero exception, which was allowable under the rules, NO CANDIDATE REJECTED BY THE SCREENING PANEL HAS EVER BEEN NOMINATED FOR SUPREME COURT BY THE KINGS COUNYY DEMOCRATIC PARTY SINCE THE REFORM WAS IMPLEMENTED.
NEVER.
For years, Ed Towns has been pushing one particular candidate. Doubtless there have been times when the County Leader’s agenda would have been served by doing that favor for Ed Towns. But that favor cannot be done, because that candidate has never managed to get through the Screening Panel.
But, as I documented, political consultant Taharka Robinson has scammed credulous reporters like Errol Louis in his campaign to eliminate or eviscerate the Panel so that his incompetent clients can receive nominations.
He has suckered reputable people into believing that a fairly successful reform is a sham.
And now he’s apparently suckered another-52nd AD District Leader candidate Jesse Strauss.
Jesse Strauss Thinking creatively about reinvigorating our democracy: http://bit.ly/aFBhXP. Brooklyn’s Democratic Party needs new ideas and new energy.
Creative thinking is just about right—it verges upon fiction.
STRAUSS: Reforming Judicial Selection: The New York State Constitution requires that State Supreme Court (trial level) justices be elected. Whether electing Supreme Court justices is the best way to assure a qualified, impartial and diverse judiciary is debatable. It would, however, take a State Constitutional Convention to move from an elected system to an appointment system, a long process in New York. In the mean time, I support rationalizing the judicial selection process to minimize the influence of party bosses by, for example, eliminating the Judicial Conventions altogether and creating a primary for Supreme Court justices. This is the same procedure that exists for Civil Court and Surrogate Court judges. Another option that might better assure diversity on the bench is a hybrid process where a Supreme Court judicial candidate can either be placed on the ballot by obtaining some percentage (perhaps over half) of the votes of the County Committee for the party in which they are registered or can petition onto the ballot like Civil Court or Surrogate Court judges (although ballot access requirements should be much less onerous than they are today). Because opening up the system would mean that elections are more competitive, the State needs to assure that there are public matching (or perhaps completely public) funding available for judicial candidates to run their campaigns. Any of the changes outlined above would require action by the State legislature. If the State retains the current Judicial Convention system the influence of party bosses and clubhouses can be minimized if the party's leadership would simply follow their own guidelines which require that Supreme Court justice candidates not found "qualified" by the Judicial Screening Panel not be submitted to the Judicial Convention with the endorsement of the Executive Committee of the County Committee. Interestingly, to date, the County Democratic leadership has consistently violated its own guidelines. As a response, I would go further and specify a judicial candidate not found "qualified" by the Judicial Screening Panel cannot even be submitted to the Judicial Convention.
Ahem–if you are even semi-literate, you may have noticed that Jesse’s article contains a number of factual errors. Excepting the one instance I’ve noted where an exception was utilized which allowed the party to disregard a Screening P:anel recommendation about a sitting Supreme Court Judge–which, however questionable, is permitted by the rules, so it does not violate them–there has NEVER been an instance when the party has nominated a candidate for Supreme Court who was not found qualified by the screening panel.
NEVER.
So, Jesse’s assertion "Interestingly, to date, the County Democratic leadership has consistently violated its own guidelines" is completely, totally and utterly quite simply untrue.
I will not call it a lie, only because I will always give the proposition that Jesse Strauss is ignorant the benefit of the doubt.
For instance, Strauss has written: that he favors “Revising the by-laws of the County Committee to prohibit public (not party) office holders from serving as Chair of the County Committee (under this proposal, to the extent permitted by law, public office holders can serve as District Leaders and on the executive committee of the County Committee but just cannot be Chair) . Among other things, this revision assures that all of our public office holders are representing their constituents, not playing politics. As Democratic Party office holders, we should demand more from our fellow Democrats.”
This is a pathetically minor reform. If he had any guts, Straus might call for prohibiting public officials from being District Leaders. And why not? Certainly, any Assembly member worth their salt can control their District Leader, so why let them hog the positions for themselves?
But Jesse reminds me of an Hasidic Rabbi who once came to me to share his concern about a dire secret in his community: there were cases of AIDS.
Of course, there were–mostly from men getting serviced under the Williamsburg Bridge by hookers of every gender, including indeterminable.
I tried to calm the Rabbi, explaining that the spread would be limited because of the lack of promiscuity in the community (the men who visited prostitutes only infected their wives).
The Rabbi responded, “this word you use, “promiscuity,” what does it mean?”
THEY LACKED EVEN HAVE THE VOCABULARY TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM.
And so does Jesse Strauss.
NEWSFLASH FOR JESSE: Vito Lopez is NOT “Chair of the County Committee.”
CHAIR OF THE COUNTY COMMITTEE is a minor and ceremonial post. I may be wrong, but I think the last public official who held that position was Strauss’ running mate, Assemblywomen Joan Millman. Jesse says a lot about how his “skill set” is the major reason for his election. But his “skill set” again and again shows a great interest in propounding ideas both lofty and irrelevant to the position of being a District Leader, and a total lack of interest in assimilating the nuts and bolts one would need to be effective in the job.
As I’ve noted more than once recently, there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with Vito Lopez as County Leader. As I also noted, not every critic of Lopez s criticizing him for the right reasons. But, it very well could be that a leadership war may emerge in Brooklyn in the near future.
If it does, it might be nice to have some reformer in the room who had the knowledge and skills to be able to negotiate with the competing factions and extract some positive changes from the process.
For that, one needs an clue, and Jesse Strauss does not have one.
What Jesse has is VISION. A VISION completely pure and unpolluted by any exposure to facts or reality.
Not that people haven't tried, but having tried myself, I can attest that Jesse is so dedicated to articulaing his pure and shining VISION (both verbally and over the web) that he never has any time left to listen to anyone who might impart some useful information which might alter it even slightly.
By leveling false criticisms at the Judicial Screening Panels (and not having a clue what the valid criticisms even are), Jesse Strauss minimizes and insult the very real and substantive accomplishments of his club's current leader Allen Fleishman and his own running mate, Jo Anne Simon.
He also insults people like Lew Fidler– the very sort of ally he would need to make if he did not wish to be totally irrelevant.
And if Jesse Strauss cannot talk to a liberal regular like Lew Fidler, how will he able to talk to a Mike Geller or a Joe Bova?
I’ve had my differences over the years with Chris Owens, and have expressed much disagreement with some of his ideas for reforming the party.
But at least Chris Owens has a clue. He knows what the system is and what its problems are. He has some idea what motivates the people at the table. He has some idea it’s a table and not a cloud.
Jesse Strauss, on the other hand, is so clueless about the windmills he wants to tilt against that he seems capable of falling for the shucks of scam artists like Taharka Robinson who prey upon the sort of ignorance Strauss exemplifies. .