Move on, Ms. Hochul
A Senate committee rejects the governor’s nominee for chief judge. There is no point in a legal fight to get the full Senate to vote.
The state Senate’s rejection of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nominee for New York’s next chief judge may have been historic, but it was hardly a shocker. It was shaping up as inevitable almost from the start.
So it’s hard to understand why Ms. Hochul might want to force the Senate — run by her fellow Democrats, remember — to heap even more embarrassment on her and engender even more ill will with this year’s session just getting under way. And even more: Why would either side want to waste public time and money having a constitutional fight over this?
By a 10-9 vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday rejected Hector LaSalle, the presiding justice of the Appellate Division of the Second Judicial Department of State Supreme Court and the governor’s pick to replace retired Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, who stepped down in August. As it turned out, all 10 votes against him were from Democrats. Another Democrat and six Republican committee members voted to send Justice LaSalle’s name to the full Senate with no recommendation either way.
But Ms. Hochul doesn’t seem to get that it is over; she wants a vote by the full
Senate.
The administration argues that committee action alone isn’t enough for the Senate to fulfill its duty of “advice and consent” under the state constitution. The governor hasn’t explicitly threatened a lawsuit to force the full Senate to act, but she hasn’t ruled it out.
Putting aside the legal hypotheticals and the strong possibility that the courts would be reluctant to play referee in a political spat like this, if Ms. Hochul thinks she could achieve a more favorable outcome from the full Senate, she’s kidding herself. Senate Democrats clearly want a more liberally minded justice, especially in an era of a strongly conservative U.S. Supreme Court. While it can certainly be argued that progressive advocates are overplaying a handful of Justice LaSalle’s decisions touching on labor groups and abortion, his supporters have failed to convince enough Democrats, who have a decisive 42-21 majority in the chamber, to grant him an appointment that could set the path of state jurisprudence for a decade or more. And with their vote earlier this month to add more Democrats to the Judiciary Committee, they already sent the governor a pretty clear signal of their intent to ensure Justice LaSalle does not become chief judge.
So if the governor is unlikely to see Justice LaSalle approved by the full Senate, what’s the point of a court fight that could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least? What’s the point of needless legal animosity, especially with budget talks about to get under way? What’s the point if the outcome is almost certainly an even bigger thumbs-down for Justice LaSalle than he’s already endured?
Maybe Ms. Hochul is a literalist. Maybe she wants not only the issue of “consent” to be decided, but for the Senate to also “advise” her.
Well, here’s some free advice for the governor: Drop it and move on. And next time, work the phones a bit. Just because state government is run by one party these days doesn’t mean the Legislature and executive are of one mind. And you know what? That’s a healthy thing in a democracy.