Let the Lasalle saga end
The fight over Justice Hector Lasalle’s failed nomination to the Court of Appeals was in part a power struggle between progressives in the Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul. It was, then, one of those inside-baseball flexing contests that are rarely of much interest to the sane majority of New Yorkers who don’t obsess over state politics.
We apologize for asking you to read about the saga once again, and we won’t blame you if you’d rather not. But important issues were at stake in the debate, including the direction of the state’s highest court and how its members will be selected.
Democrats in the state Senate made it clear from the start that they wanted a progressive judge added to the court, and you could argue it was unwise for Ms. Hochul to therefore nominate a judge probably best described as a moderate. Democrats, meanwhile, also made a striking claim, asserting they could rightfully and lawfully kill Justice Lasalle’s nomination in the chamber’s Judiciary Committee, which rejected the governor’s selection with a 10-9 vote.
Ms. Hochul and Republicans in the Legislature argued that was out of step with tradition — it was the first time the committee had declined to bring a governor’s nomination to the floor — and in conflict with the state constitution’s language about the Senate’s duty to provide “advice and consent.” Sen. Anthony Palumbo, the Judiciary Committee’s leading Republican, subsequently filed a lawsuit asking a state Supreme Court to rule on the issue.
While we urged Ms. Hochul to avoid an unnecessary fight over Justice Lasalle’s doomed nomination, the lawsuit rested on the higher moral ground. Clearly, a vote by 63 senators representing the entirety of New York’s population is superior and fundamentally more democratic than one by just 19 members of a committee, particularly when an issue as important as the direction of New York’s highest court is at stake. The Democrats’ case was further weakened by a decision to alter the size of the committee just prior to the vote, a move seemingly made to ensure the rejection of Justice Lasalle.
The lawsuit was also on the right side of the law, according to state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Whelan. In a recent ruling, the Suffolk County judge sided with Republicans and said that Senate Democrats provoked an “unnecessary constitutional crisis” and that their interpretation was “simply unreasonable.” The state constitution, he ruled, requires a full Senate vote for Court of Appeals nominees. End of story.
In one sense, Justice Whelan’s decision is moot, as Senate Democrats rushed the nomination to a full vote two days before a hearing on the court challenge. Given that Justice Lasalle was overwhelmingly rejected in a 3920 vote, we wonder why Senate Democrats felt the need to push this fight.
Regardless, the ruling clears up whatever constitutional questions existed, and it should guide the process for Ms. Hochul’s next nominee to the court. We urge Senate Democrats to let the decision stand without an appeal. The saga over Justice Lasalle’s nomination should finally come to an end.