Judicial Reports: Senate Shuffle

By Jason Boog
jasonboog@judicialstudies.com
Posted 11-12-2008

The election changed the State Senate. That means change for the Judiciary Committee. And that could mean change for the bench. 

The New York Democrats scored a big victory last week, winning 32 out of 62 seats in the State Senate — gaining majority control of that body.

That vote ended years of Republican control. The historic election also put Democrats in charge of both branches of the State Legislature for the first time since the 1930s.

This political shift augurs possibly significant changes for the court system, because it will directly affect the Senate Judiciary Committee, a panel chaired for years by Republican John A. DeFrancisco of Syracuse. While DeFrancisco will oversee the committee until the new year, its ultimate fate remains to be seen.

According to the Senator, committee chairmanships should be determined by the second week in January.

“It all depends on the new leadership,” he said in an interview. “The minority has been talking for years that it’s unfair that chairmanships only go to majority leaders — now we’ll see if that’s the case now that they have the authority.”

In addition, the Senator stressed that the choice of replacement for Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye will be immensely important to the committee’s direction.

“The Chief Judge will need to be someone who will want to rein in the Office of Court Administration (OCA) — it’s something that only a new Chief Judge can do,” he explained. “I think that’s still a priority — to cut back on the bureaucracy and use more funds for the local judiciary so the courts can operate as smoothly as possible.”

Senator Malcolm A. Smith of Queens, the current Senate Minority Leader, did not return calls for comment.

To help divine the future, Judicial Reports used a recent Legislative survey released by the Fund for Modern Courts to measure the thoughts of a number of Democratic Senators who will control this new Legislature. Click here to read a copy of that report.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit reform group sent surveys to hundreds of State Legislature candidates following the 2008 Primary, providing, among other things, a peek into the State Senate. The survey was sent to all 116 State Senate candidates running for office this year. Modern Courts received 18 responses, and only nine of those respondents actually won their seats.

(In addition, the survey was sent to all 270 State Assembly candidates running for office this year. They received 36 responses.)

Of those nine winners, eight were Democratic Senators. Their survey responses address two flashpoint issues: judicial selection reform and court restructuring.


For years, judicial selection reform has divided the Senate Judiciary Committee — three Democratic survey respondents didn’t agree with the Fund for Modern Courts on this key issue.
 
The survey asked State Senators if they would, like Modern Courts, “support a commission based appointive system that would create a system that would not require the election of judges?” According to the report, 64 percent of the respondents answered affirmatively.

Dennis R. Hawkins, Executive Director of Modern Courts, was pleased with that statistic.

“Those aren’t bad numbers. We believe there are others who support it that didn’t respond. We will continue to have that as a priority on our list,” he said. “For many years we’ve advocated a commission based appointive system for all judges.”

Among the eight Democratic respondents elected this year, three Senators spoke out against appointive systems. Among the pro-election faction was incumbent Democratic Senator Toby Ann Stavisky of Queens.

“Appointed judges tend to reflect (and look like) the appointing authority,” she commented on the survey.

The Senator also bemoaned a lack of diversity on the bench, a common criticism of appointive systems. “I served on a task force on diversity in the Courts and people testified that they couldn't afford pay cuts. I represent 100,000+ Asian Americans and the percentage of judges is miniscule,” she explained.

Incumbent Democratic Senator Velmanette Montgomery of Brooklyn also worried that merit-based appointment would hurt diversity on the bench. “I do not favor a ‘merit’ selection appointment system which would reduce the number of people of color being selected for Supreme Court,” she explained.

Out of all the elected respondents, only Eric T. Schneiderman, an incumbent Senator from Manhattan and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had a plan to reform the judicial election system.

“I would promote establishing pilot programs for publicly financed judicial elections and support reforms of the convention process (e.g. reducing size of conventions, extending delegates’ terms and reducing the designating petition signature requirements),” he explained.

Recently, court restructuring became a major focus for the Fund. The Legislative Survey also asked candidates if they supported, like Modern Courts, “a Constitutional Amendment that would consolidate the State’s major trial courts into a two-tier structure.”

That description came straight from recommendations posed by the Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts, a body appointed by the Chief Judge and led by Carey R. Dunne.

In 2007, the Dunne Commission returned a 175-page document, recommending two moves by Judicial and Legislative leaders: “a consolidation of the State's 11 major trial courts into a streamlined, two-tier structure, and the creation of a Fifth Judicial Department to ease our State's appellate burden.”

The survey results returned with unanimous support for this idea. Hawkins attributed this change to the budget crisis currently gripping the state.

“In these tough financial times, something that could save the taxpayers $500 million has to be on the minds of legislators,” he said, citing cost-saving figures released by the Dunne Commission.

“We’ll continue to lobby hard. It’s gratifying to see near unanimous support,” he concluded.

Senator DeFrancisco had doubts about the restructuring, worrying that the new system would give too much power to administrators and limit judicial choices.

“I’d prefer [a system where] people who want to be a specific kind of judge for a specific kind of court can run for that particular court,” he explained. “If there’s a two-tier system [the decision] would be left to the administrators and not those who ran for the office,” he concluded.

While only 48 of the total 54 State Legislature respondents answered that question, 100 percent of those 48 replies supported the measure.

William T. Stachowski, a Democratic incumbent from Buffalo, said that he hoped the measure could rectify inequalities that he saw between City and County Courts in the current system.
 
“I still have a problem with City Court judges being treated in a lower manner than County Court judges,” he wrote.

Thomas K. Duane, a Democratic incumbent from Manhattan and Senate Judiciary Committee member, also supported the measure, but also expressed concern about the lower courts. “Presently access to Family Court is free. There must always be a fee free option for low income people,” he concluded.

Posted by Jason on November 12, 2008 01:29 AM to Judicial Reports