State Chamber official: Oklahoma needs fair, impartial judiciary

Let’s talk about a fair and impartial court in Oklahoma. Where do the judges come from? The governor appoints them from candidates selected by the Judicial Nominating Commission. Who makes up the JNC? Six members are lawyers elected in a closed ballot open only to Oklahoma lawyers. Six are appointed by the governor, one is appointed by the House speaker, one is appointed by the Senate president pro tem. The final member of the JNC is selected by the other members.

Fifteen total, of which 40 percent are elected by fellow lawyers. Only five other states allow a monopoly of lawyers to elect the lawyer brethren to fill these important JNC slots.

Senate Joint Resolution 21 would remove this monopolistic power of the Oklahoma Bar Association and require the speaker and president pro tem to each appoint three more members of the JNC. All six of them would have to be Oklahoma lawyers.

The president of the OBA says, “Any changes in the system we have now would make it more political.” Really?

During the last few weeks of 2012 election cycle in Oklahoma, the “Yes for Fair and Impartial Judges” political action committee was created by lawyers who raised $404,100 in four weeks and campaigned hard for the judges who were up for retention in that election. Those contributing attorneys had 450 cases docketed before the appellate courts between 2007 and 2012.

Let me be clear: These are attorneys who had cases in front of the judges who were up for retention. These are attorneys who raised more than $400,000 to make sure the judges they appeared before were re-elected. And the OBA president says the simple change of not allowing lawyers to elect lawyers to nominate their judicial candidates is going to make the system “more political.”

I don’t think so. The current system of election by only lawyers has politicized our judicial selection process for decades.

Six states involve their legislative leadership in choosing JNC members, with Tennessee doing exactly what SJR 21 is trying to do: give the six appointments to the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tem.

In addition, 14 other states involve the governor and/or the legislature in the process along with the lawyer association. That means 20 of the 33 states that have JNCs don’t allow for election by only lawyers to fill bar member slots on their JNCs.

The appointment process set out by SJR 21 allows for a closer review by elected officials — elected by the citizens of the state of Oklahoma — rather than the current system of a closed ballot open only to lawyers. Remember, the problems Oklahoma saw back in the 1960s didn’t come from our selection process as much as it did from corrupt lawyers bribing judges. The nominating process remains the same, as does the appointment by the governor.

All SJR 21 would do is take special interests out of the judicial nominating process.

Seney is vice president of policy analysis and strategic planning at The State Chamber.