{"id":1274,"date":"2007-02-16T12:59:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-16T18:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/richardson-to-sue-over-judicial-nominating-fight\/"},"modified":"2007-02-16T12:59:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-16T18:59:00","slug":"richardson-to-sue-over-judicial-nominating-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/richardson-to-sue-over-judicial-nominating-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson to sue over judicial nominating fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> will sue a judicial nominating commission from Car<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>lsbad<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> that has refused to recommend more than one applicant for an open district judgeship there, and he\u2019ll be defended by Attorney General Gary King<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an escalation of a fight that has been brewing since January, when the commission recommended only one candidate to Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> for appointment to an open district judge seat. The law requires that commissions interview applicants and recommend candidates to the governor. If the governor doesn\u2019t like the options, he is allowed to ask, once, for the commission to meet again and send him additional recommendations from the original list of applicants. He is then required to choose a judge from among those who are recommended.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The system is designed so that a bipartisan group of legal professionals weed out applicants who aren\u2019t suited to be judges before politics enter into the picture with the appointment by the governor.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In this instance, the commission sent the name of only one \u2013 former District Judge James Richard Brown \u2013 to Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>, though there were five applicants. Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> didn\u2019t like that and asked the commission for additional names. The commission met again and opted against sending other names to the governor.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> argues that, unless the commission sends him at least two candidates for consideration, it is taking away his authority to appoint.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThe power of a governor to appoint means the power to choose,\u201d Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said in a news release. \u201cI cannot let the commission\u2019s actions stand unchallenged when they fly in the face of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

King agreed.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI know the governor feels strongly about preserving his executive right to choose among qualified candidates for judgeships under our constitution,\u201d he said. \u201cWe believe that the nominating commissions should be required to present a group of qualified candidates to the governor to preserve his authority to select the appropriate person to serve as judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

University of New Mexico Law School Dean Suellyn Scarnecchia<\/a>, who is responsible for setting up and presiding over judicial nominating commissions, argues that the New Mexico Constitution doesn\u2019t require that commissions send two names and doesn\u2019t grant her the authority to reconvene a commission more than once, even when it votes to send only one candidate to the governor for consideration.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

At the urging of the governor, Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez<\/a>, D-Belen, has introduced Senate Bill 1075<\/a>, which would require that all commissions provide at least two names to the governor for consideration. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson will sue a judicial nominating commission from Carlsbad that has refused to recommend more than one applicant for an open district judgeship there, and he\u2019ll be defended by Attorney General Gary King. It\u2019s an escalation of a fight that has been brewing since January, when the commission recommended only one candidate to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}