Bill to give Governor judical appointment power advances
By Randolph Pendleton
Times-Union senior writer
TALLAHASSEE - A bill to give the governor more influence in appointing judges advanced in the House yesterday after a committee killed tongue-in-cheek amendments requiring members of judicial nominating commissions to be graduates of Bob Jones University and certified by the Christian Coalition.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City, rebuked Reps. Curt Levine, D-Boca Raton, and John Cosgrove, D-Miami, for offering amendments that he said trivialized the process.
''To demean the process by filing amendments like this is beneath the dignity of what we are here to do,'' Byrd told the two legislators.
Rep. Luis Rojas, a Miami Republican who voted against the bill to give the governor an additional appointment to judicial nominating commissions and allow the House speaker and Senate president to each appoint a member, also criticized the amendments.
''Obviously these are a mockery of the process,'' Rojas said. ''Both of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.''
But Levine and Cosgrove were uncontrite, saying they wanted to bring public attention to the attempts by Republicans to politicize the judiciary.
Judicial nominating commissions screen applicants for judgeships and send a list of names to the governor from which he must make his selection.
Several bills that would give the governor and Legislature more power over the judiciary have been introduced, including one that would give Gov. Jeb Bush two more appointments to the Supreme Court by expanding the court from seven to nine justices.
''I call them the pack 'em, stack 'em and whack 'em bills,'' Cosgrove said.
Levine, Cosgrove and Rep. Stacy Ritter, D-Coral Springs, may have derailed the court-expansion bill with satirical amendments making the governor the chief justice of the Supreme Court and requiring him to watch the television series ''Law and Order,'' ''Judge Judy'' and ''L.A. Law'' and read two John Grisham novels.
That bill came up prior to the judicial nominating commission bill and Byrd postponed action when he saw the amendments.
After the meeting, Byrd said the bill would ''probably'' come up in the future, less than a firm commitment to pursue the issue.
Bush has said he sees no reason to expand the court and there appears to be little support for it in the Senate.
Rep. Dudley Goodlette, R-Naples, the sponsor of the expansion bill, said his only motive was to ease the Supreme Court's workload.
The judicial nominating commission bill was supported by the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Christian Coalition, which said it would break the hold that the Florida Bar has on the nomination process.
''We do not support an unaccountable and arrogant judiciary,'' said John Dowless, representing the Christian Coalition.
Rheb Harbison, senior vice president for government affairs for the chamber, said the current process has interfered with the governor's prerogative to pick the people he wants as judges.
''It enables a group of nonelected officials to slam dunk the governor,'' Harbison said.
But the Bar and Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers strongly opposed the bill.
Richard McFarlain, representing the Bar, said the proposal would politicize the system far beyond the current local politics that is sometimes involved in nominating commissions.
''Politics is terrific for the Legislature,'' McFarlain said. ''It is poison for the judiciary.''