Open The Doors On Tennessee’s Secret Selection
April 15, 2008
Supporters of so-called “merit selection” schemes - the secret selection of judges by legal elites - are closely watching the latest developments in Tennessee. Their Lawyers Choose, Voters Lose plan is set to expire soon.
So, is Tennessee’s Star Chamber dead?
Not quite. Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen’s proposal to open Tennessee’s Judicial Selection Committee meetings to the public has been scuttled by a “lawyer-dominated” subcommittee in the state legislature, reports the Knoxville News Sentinel.
“I can’t imagine why they think a process as important as selecting judges…public officials with enormous power ought to be conducted in secret,” Gov. Bredesen said afterward.
Let me offer one reason Tennessee’s Star Chamber demands closed door meetings.
Right now, the state’s 17-member Judicial Selection Commission is stackedwith lawyers hand picked by special interest groups like the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association. If meetings were open, voters might discover that many judges with ideologies amenable to the trial bar are making their way to the bench, when they could never be elected by the public. They might even demand the return of their constitutional right to vote!
Three cheers for Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey — he has said he’d prefer to terminate the panel, which is set to expire on July 1.