There are some things on which you can't put a price tag. It is too bad the future of our children ain't one of them.

Back on March 23, 2006, I posted my first piece on "Room 8", and said, in part:

"today's decision by the Appellate Division, 1st Department, in the CFE case, together with the impending attempts to convert Roe v. Wade into an empty shell, highlight the problems with "merit selection". Those who control the Executive Branch determine who has the "merit". The First Department's appointed Appellate Division largely consists of upstate Republican hacks imported from the vicintiy of the Cheese Museum. In many ways, the byproducts (AKA our local judicial bench) produced by our own local political culture (which is, at least, more liberal and more racially diverse) look far better in comparison."

Saturday's New Yost Post editorial quoting Mayor Bloomberg, in defending his decision to approve the City Council raises, as saying –

"All legislative bodies at the federal, state and city levels have a similar situation [with lulus]. It is the ways that the head of the legislative body . . . [controls] the members, pulling them together, getting them to vote as a bloc so you don't have chaos."

One problem.

That's just not true.

Congress does not give extra pay to Committee Chairs. And neither do the legislatures of the 2 biggest states – California & Texas. I didn't check the other 47 states or the thousands of other City Councils but somehow I doubt that Idaho or Duluth are paying lulus to Committee chairs.

Another argument made in support of continuing Judicial Conventions and not having Primaries choose candidates for State Supreme Court Justice has to do with diversity on the bench. Just a few days ago, a Democratic Party activist told me he believed that if Primaries picked them, there would never be another Black or Hispanic Supreme Court Justice elected in Manhattan.

To try to determine how true that is, I decided to look at Countywide Primaries for judgeships in the last 10 years since the Supreme Court Districts in New York City are the same as the 5 counties (except that Brooklyn and Staten Island are a combined district for Supreme Court).

One of the loudest arguments in favor of continuing Judicial Conventions and not having Primaries choose candidates for State Supreme Court Justice has to do with money. At Wednesday’s hearing before the State Assembly Judiciary Committee, witnesses and Assembly members warned that Primaries would mean that judgeships would go to the highest bidder and that big money would corrupt the justice system. Million dollar campaigns have been predicted.

But is that a legitimate fear?

Since other elected judges are selected through Primaries, shouldn’t we look at what candidates for these positions spend on campaigns?

Over the years I have consulted for numerous candidates for judge. Because of this, I take a particular interest in the never-ending debate on judicial selection in New York.

I’m basically agnostic on the question of which system produces the best judges but I do have one strong belief – no system is perfect!

Appointments, elections, merit selections, panels, etc. – all of them will produce great judges, good judges, mediocre judges, bad judges and crooks.

But most others are not agnostic. They are advocates for one system and can only see the bad results of the systems they oppose and are blind to how their preferred schemes actually work.

Yesterday, Ben Smith of Daily Politics asked,  “Who lost the State Senate?”, offering five alternative theories. The day before, it was Wayne Barrett who raised the same issue; but, I started complaining last spring.

 As I’ve stated before  (11/8/06), there is enough blame for everyone to enjoy a piece, with seconds for anyone who asks. I outlined Ben’s theory number #3 (Blame David Paterson) in all its gory details on May 10, 2006. Theory #4 (blame internal politics) is just a subset of #3; if Paterson had done what Spitzer had asked, and stepped down as leader early on, internal politics would have been resolved well before the election; instead the leading members of the Senate's Democratic Conference were so interested in becoming Minority Leader, they forgot about becoming Majority Leader. 

I outlined theory #2 (Blame the County Leaders) in my pre-election Voter’s Guide (11/6/06) and again after the election  (11/10/06), but in a way, its just a subset of  the usual Albany malaise (4/29/06). For their own reasons, the Assembly Democrats have little interest in a Democratic Senate; many County leaders are Assembly members, others depend upon the Assembly Democrats to provide them essential support. In Brooklyn, some local Dems are actually bragging about how their decision to prevent an opponent for Republican Senator Marty Golden allowed the Democrats to pick up one more Assembly seat, bringing Shelly Silver's veto proof majority up to a superfluous 108 out of 150.

A reader asks:

“I’ve just read this article by Wayne Barrett (11/14/06) in the Village Voice, and can’t help but notice that its points almost exactly echo those you made (11/10/06), here (11/8/06) and here (in the section on races for the State Senate) (11/6/06).

In addition, I can’t help noticing that both you and Barrett became writers because it was less difficult than giving up masturbation (Barrett is actually on record about this) and both of you have been accused of having difficulty restraining yourself from writing stories favorable to your personal friends.”