Scott should loosen grip on judicial appointments

For at least the past couple of years, a misguided minority of Florida lawmakers has been trying to give the governor a tighter grip on the process of appointing judges. And a more enlightened majority has rejected those attempts to graft the judicial branch of government to the executive branch.

Unfortunately for Floridians, Gov. Rick Scott has seized the initiative himself to expand his control over picking judges. He’s put the independence of the state’s judiciary in danger.

Florida adopted its current system of using nine-member commissions to nominate candidates for judicial vacancies four decades ago under reformminded Gov. Reubin Askew. Those nine members vet judicial applicants for their qualifications and forward a short list of nominees to the governor, whochooses one for appointment.

At the time of Askew’s reform, the public’s faith in Florida’s court system had been clobbered by corruption. The blame lay with judges whoowed their positions to political connections — instead of to fairness, integrity and other essential qualifications for all who are entrusted to administer justice.

Under the system Askew launched, authority to appoint members to the nominating commissions was divided between the governor and The Florida Bar, the professional organization for the state’s lawyers. The Bar, a nonpartisan group, created some insulation from politics and added credibility to the process of evaluating applicants’ qualifications.

State lawmakers weakened the system in 2001, allowing the governor to name all nine members of the commissions, but letting the Bar nominate four of them. This might have gutted Askew’s reform, but Scott’s predecessors, Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush, routinely accepted the Bar’s nominations.

Scott, however, has rejected dozens of Bar nominees. His chief counsel told the Tampa Bay Times that the governor “wants people with humility and he wants judges whowill follow the law and not make it up as they go along.” It’s hard to argue with those goals, but it’s a canard to suggest that a professional organization of the Bar’s standing would work against them.

Here’s the real story: Florida courts haven’t been shy about challenging the governor and lawmakers. Judges have struck down laws they found to be unconstitutional and struck from the ballot legislative proposals they found to be misleading. But if the governor dictates all the members on the commissions that nominate judges, those panels are more likely to come up with lists of candidates whowill bow to his political agenda.

Judges aren’t infallible, but they aren’t supposed to wield rubber stamps for politicians. Under the state and federal constitutions, an independent judiciary is an essential check and balance on the power of the other two branches of government.

Anything that undermines that relationship — including a governor whostrong-arms the judicial appointment process — is dangerous to democracy.