An idea for selecting judges

Historically, states have chosen one of two ways for naming judges. One emulates the way Supreme Court justices are picked -- lifetime appointments. The second way, the one used here in Texas, is partisan elections. Neither way works all that well. Lifetime appointments produces judges who are not accountable to voters, while those who are elected become influenced by political ideologies. A defendant in a court case they will have a long lasting effect on the rest of his life -- from drunk driving cases, to child custody disputes, to foreclosures, to criminal charges -- should only be concerned that the presiding jurist is accountable to the law, and not to some political constituency.

So why not combine the two systems?

Here's the way I would like to see judges appointed in Texas. Create a judicial nominating commission, a 31-member group with each member selected by a state senator. The one caveat I would place is that no more than 10 members of the commission could be attorneys and I will explain why in a minute. Whenever there is a judicial vacancy in Texas, interested individuals would submit applications to the commission, which would review the applications, intervie the candidates who submitted them, and finally submit a recommended list of no more than three individuals to the governor who would pick one of the three.

Then, every four years, voters would decide whether to keep that judge in office in a strict "yes" or "no" vote. In that way, the judge is still accountable to the voters and the vote is strictly about the judge's record and performance, not partisan politics. The judge is, in effect, running against himself and not some semi-qualified political hack. I would guess that most voters today have no idea about the qualifications of the candidates on the ballots for judges around the state. If they vote for them at all, they vote along party lines. (One only has to witness what has happened in Dallas since Democrats started winning elections.) In a "yes" or "no" election, voters will have opportunities to learn more about the judges they are voting to retain or remove.

Now back to why I would not have more than 10 attorneys on the judicial nominating commission. It prevents the selection process from benefiting legal insiders only. Not only that, I would make all meetings of the judicial nominating commission open to the public and would require the commission to post the applications of all judicial candidates on-line.

Every year, millions of dollars are spent by individuals seeking election to various state courts. This is ridiculous. The type of merit selection system I have outlined will give us far superior jurists yet keep them accountable to the people they serve.