New York state and its allies have now filed their briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court in N.Y. State Bd. of Elections v Lopez Torres, no. 06-766. Allied with the state on the merits are the New York State Republican Party, the Manhatten Democratic Party, the Association of State Supreme Court Justices, the Republican National Committee, New York’s Attorney General, and the Asian American Bar Association. Also, the Mid-Manhatten Branch of the NAACP and the Metropolitan Black Bar Association filed an amicus brief that seems to be neutral on the merits but argues that the relief ordered by the lower courts was wrong.
Groups that filed an amicus brief in the 2nd circuit on the state’s side, but did not bother to file an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on the state’s side, are the Women’s Bar Association of New York, the Staten Island Bar Association, and the New York state legislature.
The issue in the case is the method New York uses to nominate Supreme Court Justices. Judicial district conventions choose party nominees. Delegates to the district conventions need 500 signatures, collected in 37 days from party members in their own county (judicial districts are larger than counties). While that sounds easy, there are hundreds of delegates chosen. Anyone who wants to be nominated, and who doesn’t have the support of party leaders who get the party-backed slates of delegates on the primary ballot, must get his or her own delegates on the primary ballots. The task is so difficult, virtually no one ever gets on the primary ballot except slates of delegate candidates backed by the party organization. Then, since there is no primary contest, that office is simply removed from the primary ballot.
New York and its allies don’t argue that collecting all these signatures is easy. They just say that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t protect ballot access in partisan primaries. Also they say that the system was never designed for someone who wants a judicial nomination to recruit slates of delegates and organize petition drives to get them on the ballot.
Lopez Torres’ brief, and amici briefs from her allies, are due in June.
The premise of the judicial conventions is that the delegates will be elected by a well-informed electorate from among competing slates (or better yet, individuals). Such delegates will make well-informed decisions regarding the best-qualified paragons of the legal profession to be offered as their party’s candidates for state supreme court justice. An involved and well-informed general electorate will then choose the best after a spirited and civic-minded campaign.
In reality, of course, none of this happens (and as a native New Yorker who grew up with this I can’t say ever remember a time when it DID happen), but it is not for the judiciary to make the decision to jettison this process. The State and the parties are right to claim this jurisdiction for the legislature alone.
Howard Hirsch, Chairman
Lyon County Republican Central Committee
Dayton, Nevada
a4bfd1axj0kcm7jq