ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220075
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
STATE lawmakers are loath to admit that anything except merit is considered when they elect judges.
Partisan favoritism? Political jockeying? Nah!
So why do news reports from Richmond tell of a hissing contest developing between Senate Republicans and House Democrats over the selection of judges this year?
The gist of it: Senate Republicans, having achieved numerical parity with Senate Democrats, face a first-time opportunity to have their judicial nominees considered, perhaps even elected, in the legislature's upper chamber.
House Democrats, still holding the upper hand in the lower chamber, are reserving their right to blackball any Senate nominees of the GOP variety. Actually, they put it less delicately. Del. Kenneth Melvin, D-Portsmouth, boasts that if Senate Republicans try to seat any GOP judges, House Democrats will ``kick their butts off'' the bench.
And if a Senate-House stalemate results, leaving it to GOP Gov. George Allen to fill some circuit-court vacancies after the session ends, House Speaker Tom Moss of Norfolk suggests that House Democrats will simply refuse to confirm Allen's appointees next year. ``I would suggest that any judge [Allen] appoints should not give up his [law-office] lease,'' says Moss.
If merit is the criterion, Moss should explain how he is able to determine that any judge who might be appointed by Allen has no merit - before he knows who that judge might be. Likewise, perhaps Del. Melvin can instruct the public as to what kicking butt has to do with this.
Such political sniping - Senate Republicans also are demanding to get their partisan way - simply reconfirms the need for a merit-selection system in which judges would be nominated by a bipartisan commission. The current order insults Virginia's citizens and their judiciary.
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB