Gov. Hochul retreats to square one on finding a top judge for state
ALBANY — The state Senate’s extraordinary rejection of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nominee to head New York’s highest court Wednesday has placed the state’s leaders in uncharted territory, clouding Hochul’s first full term in power.
The uncertainty stemmed from the unprecedented rejection; the Senate’s vote against Justice Hector Lasalle to lead the Court of Appeals marked the first time that lawmakers have refused a governor’s pick for chief judge.
Now Hochul and Senate Democrats must determine how to pick another nominee for the Senate to consider. The answer may shed light on whether there will be longterm ramifications stemming from the governor’s defeat.
The ruling Senate Democrats believe the process must start from scratch because state law regards the rejection of a chief judge nominee as creating a vacancy on the bench. That would mean a special commission must once again consider applications from candidates and come up with a new list for the governor to choose from, a process that could take months.
It remains unclear, however, how the governor will proceed and whether she will expedite the process by simply nominating one of the other six candidates the commission recommended last year.
On Wednesday, the governor’s office said it would work with the commission to determine how best to proceed. In a statement, the governor only said that she would “work toward making a new nomination.”
“I remain committed to selecting a qualified candidate to lead the court and deliver justice,” said Hochul, a Democrat from Buffalo who was elected to a full term in November after replacing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in August 2021.
Any conflict over the process to select a new nominee could reignite tensions between Hochul and Democrats who control the state Senate, even as both sides have vowed to close a divisive chapter that pitted Democrats against one another.
But in a state Capitol where old feuds are known to bleed into the future, the controversy over the Lasalle nomination is bound to reverberate in the coming weeks, especially as Hochul negotiates the state’s $227 billion budget with lawmakers.
Political observers in Albany have speculated that the governor may assert her authority by being less willing to compromise during the budget negotiations over policy items favored by Senate Democrats and may even seek retribution.
Even so, the governor’s handling of the Lasalle nomination has led critics and even some of her allies to raise concerns about her political acumen, casting the intraparty fight as one she could have avoided. She failed to work behind the scenes to assure his nomination, and when it became clear that she lacked the votes, she decided against withdrawing the nomination.
Instead, the defeat resulted in a double repudiation of her nominee, once by a Senate committee in January and again by the entire body Wednesday, and a Republican-led lawsuit essentially arguing on the governor’s behalf.
“She nominated him and apparently was willing to let him twist in the wind,” said Rob Ortt, the Republican minority leader in the state Senate.
The Republican lawsuit contended that the Senate violated the state constitution because it denied Lasalle a vote from the full Senate body. Senate Democrats had for weeks resisted moving the nomination to a full vote, arguing that the committee that had rejected Lasalle on Jan. 18 had fulfilled the chamber’s constitutional duty.
But the Senate’s vote Wednesday mooted that argument and put the governor in the weak position of casting the floor vote, which she had insisted on for weeks, as “an important victory for the constitution” despite its outcome.
Some have posited that the quarrel could embolden Democratic lawmakers, who hold a veto-proof supermajority in both legislative chambers, to more aggressively push leftleaning legislation past Hochul.
On Wednesday, Andrea Stewart-cousins, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, said she had called the governor before the vote, and told reporters that she hoped to have a “cooperative” partnership with Hochul moving forward.
“I just wanted, as we closed this chapter, to make sure that there was an understanding that we’re not arbitrary, we’re not capricious,” Stewart-cousins said. “We are a deliberative body.”
It remains to be seen whether the governor will pick a candidate, even if grudgingly, with credentials more to the liking of Senate Democrats. Some had pushed for a judge not only with a more liberal record but also with a history as a public defender or civil rights lawyer.
Under the state constitution, the process to fill a vacancy in the Court of Appeals, comprising a chief judge and six associate judges who serve 14-year terms, begins with a special commission of 12 appointees made by the governor, the chief judge and legislative leaders.
The commission solicits applications from candidates and screens them, weighing their personal and professional qualifications to come up with, in theory, a diverse slate of seven candidates.
Also unclear is the fate of the Republican-led lawsuit that accused Democrats of acting unconstitutionally.
Shortly after the vote Wednesday, Ortt said that Republicans would continue to pursue legal action if only to get clarity from the courts about the judicial nomination process in the future.
“I think it’d be helpful for any executive to know what is their hand as they’re putting forward nominees and going through this process,” he said.