The ease with which a successor was chosen for Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis on the Colorado Supreme Court strengthens our opposition to tinkering with a judicial selection process that works pretty well.
The process has practically nothing in common with the federal system, where, according to one legal scholar, “the president can nominate Elmer Fudd if he wants to.”
President Bush didn’t nominate a cartoon character, but he did nominate Harriet Miers, whose qualifications were sharply questioned until she withdrew under fire from the far right. The president also nominated John Roberts and Samuel Alito, with better results.
Coloradans wisely scrapped popular election of judges four decades ago and opted for a hybrid process that gives voters final say on whether judges appointed by the governor keep their jobs.
Nominating commissions for the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals and similar commissions made up of lawyers and non-lawyers in each of the state’s judicial districts screen applicants for vacancies in the county and district courts. The governor appoints all state judges, except in Denver, where county judges are named by the mayor.
Within 30 days of a vacancy, the commission must meet, sort through nominees based on written applications, recommendations and interviews, and submit names to the governor. He has 15 days to act; if he fails to do so, the chief justice can then pick a nominee. New judges serve an initial term of two years and then must stand for retention at the next general election. Thereafter, judges serve specific terms but must retire at age 72. Not having to raise money for expensive partisan political campaigns makes it less likely Colorado judges are beholden to special interests.
Term limits have robbed this state of statehouse experience. Now, some ideologues (who consider any judge who rules against them an “activist”) want to term-limit the state judiciary.
That’s a bad idea because, as Roger Clark, president of the Colorado Bar Association, points out, it’s difficult enough to get lawyers to give up lucrative practices to become judges. Term limits would mean applicants “are practically all going to be people at the end of their careers,” and yet less experienced.
Colorado judicial salaries range from $105,513 for a county judge to $119,739 for a Supreme Court justice – slim incentive to abandon a law practice for a short stint on the bench. Good judges are worth keeping – although maybe not for life, as in the federal system.
