Rescuing Democracy in the Volunteer State
March 9, 2009
Tennessee’s “merit” selection system is on life support and will expire on June 30 unless the legislature reauthorizes it. The Tennessee Journal reports lawmakers have filed 20 separate bills in an attempt to win enough votes to ensure its survival. Among the reforms offered:
- Requiring Senate confirmation of judicial appointments;
- Raising the threshold for retention to 60%;
- Revising the judicial nominating commission’s role to rating judges as “qualified” or “not qualified” rather than submitting approved slates to the governor;
- Bringing the commission out from behind closed doors by making its meetings public;
- Allowing the governor to request a second slate of nominees.
Needless to say, legal special interest groups are lobbying hard to maintain their privileged position when it comes to picking Tennessee judges. According to the newsletter, the state bar association even has its own bill, which would give the House and Senate speakers more leeway in picking commissioners, but would still guarantee that lawyers control all future “merit” selection panels.
Some of these reforms have merit (no pun intended), but they all miss the big picture. Tennessee’s “merit” selection system has failed because an unelected, unaccountable commission dominated by a single special interest group gets to decide who will control 1/3rd of the state government. The best reform of all would be to shut down the secret commissions and revert to the wisdom of Tennessee’s founders, who believed judges, like other public servants, should be chosen by the people.
Absent a return to democratic elections, here’s a compromise solution: Keep the commission, which would allow legal elites to weigh in with their combined wisdom, but let the governor pick any judicial candidate he/she believes is best qualified and not be bound by the commission’s selections. At least that way the governor would be directly accountable to the people of Tennessee for his/her judicial choices.