It is strange on its face that another challenge against Tennessee’s judicial retention system – the seventh by implacable Nashville attorney John J. Hooker – is again due an appeal hearing by a specially appointed state Supreme Court panel. One would think Hooker would have given up by now. It’s even stranger that Gov. Bill Haslam would get criticized on the notion that he favors the system, and that he allegedly tried to stack the special court that would hear Hooker’s appeal, just because the retention statute allows the governor to fill vacant appellate judicial seats.
The criticism of Haslam in this instance is as absurd as Hooker’s recycled claim that the judicial retention system violates the state’s Constitution. For starters, the Tennessee Constitution already gives the governor authority to appoint interim judges when there are vacancies in the judiciary at the trial, appellate and Supreme Court levels. There’s no need for him to stack the special panel to retain that authority.
Moreover, the 1972 legislation that established the state’s judicial retention system restricted the governor’s appointment powers by also establishing a 17-member judicial nominating commission to screen judicial candidates and give the governor three candidates from which to choose.
The governor can reject the first slate of three candidates, but he then must pick from a second slate of three names. That process works against a governor who might wish to name an unqualified crony to the bench. Indeed, the process of screening interviews by a large, diverse nominating commission and thorough background checks has elevated the quality of judicial nominees and raised the bar for judicial candidates.
Regardless of these restrictions, Gov. Haslam rightly supports the judicial retention system, as most informed Tennesseans and business leaders do. Their support is merited because the system largely eliminates the prospect of big-money politics in the elections of appellate and Supreme Court justices. In fact, most states have adopted similar judicial retention systems for higher courts for that very reason.