If It Looks Like “Merit” Selection and Smells Like “Merit” Selection…
January 23, 2012
Has “merit” selection become so discredited that its supporters won’t even utter the name? That seems to be the case in North Carolina, if Paul D. Carrington of the North Carolina Bar Association Committee for Judicial Independence is any guide.
In a Charlotte News and Observer oped last week, Carrington bemoans the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate “matching fund” rules that shoveled taxpayer dollars to candidates in danger of “being outspent by rival candidates” who chose not to participate in public financing. Since, “alas, our good system is now dead,” Carrington and the North Carolina Bar Association are pushing a new plan that “assigns an important role to voters to approve or disapprove appointments of judges nominated by our governor on the advice of a diverse and disinterested panel.” Carrington applauds Governor Beverly Perdue for having “taken the first step in creating a sensible system” by establishing “a diverse committee to advise her on prospective appointments.”
Sure smells like “merit” selection to me, although Carrington doesn’t dare mention it. But just to be sure, I Googled “North Carolina judicial nominating commission” … and whaddya know! In addition to the usual assortment of Bar Association luminaries, it turns out this shiny new commission, which Carrington wants “firmly established to play an important role” in picking judges is chaired by Perdue’s “former general counsel” who just happens to be a “fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.” Another commission member is a Raleigh attorney who served as the “founding Chair” of the successor group to the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers. Nope, nobody here but us “diverse and disinterested” committee members.
As an old political hand, the language of Carrington’s piece fascinated me. In place of a “merit” commission, we have a “diverse and disinterested panel;” instead of acknowledging that the committee would actually have the power to make nominations, we hear it would merely “play an important role” in the process; instead of dictating to Governor Perdue or a future governor, the commission merely “advise[s]” on “prospective appointments.” Of course, the whole proposal leads off with the assurance that it “assigns an important role to voters” – which is the first sign they’re about to get shafted.
Maybe I’m getting cynical, but I’ve been on the used car lot before and I know when a lemon is being gussied up so it can be pawned off on some unsuspecting customer, which in this case is North Carolina’s voters.
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Merit Selection, North Carolina
2 Responses to “If It Looks Like “Merit” Selection and Smells Like “Merit” Selection…”
[...] campaign afoot in North Carolina to take the power to pick judges away from the people. In a recent post, I pointed out that North Carolina Beverly Perdue’s new judicial advisory panel is stacked with [...]
[...] Carolina posts a compelling argument against the state’s flirtation with “merit” selection. As I’ve written, NC Governor Beverly Perdue has created a doppelganger “merit” board and the state’s legal [...]