Bill to Add 50 Judges Clears Major Hurdle
Sunday, June 10, 2007
- Organization: Daily Journal
Bill to Add 50 Judges Clears Major Hurdle
Joint-Panel Backing Essentially Ensures State Budget Spot
By Gary Scott
Daily Journal Staff Writer
SACRAMENTO - A bill that would add 50 judges to the California bench won the support of a joint legislative budget committee this week, essentially ensuring that money for the positions will be included in the state budget.
The measure is one of the few items related to judicial-branch funding on which Democrats in the state Senate and Assembly have agreed.
78-1 Assembly Vote
AB159, sponsored by Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, provides $27 million in one-time costs and $40 million annually to hire an unspecified number of trial-court judges, though all parties seem to have settled on 50.
The bill, passed Wednesday in the Assembly by a 78-1 vote, also would convert as many as 162 subordinate judicial officers to Superior Court judges at a rate of 16 a year.
360 Judges Needed
AB159 will move to the state Senate for approval. The governor had included funding for the positions in his proposed budget, released in January.
"The current shortage of judicial resources ... means Californians cannot get the fair, timely and equitable justice they seek every day in our courts," Jones said in a statement. "My legislation will help fill this critical justice gap."
A study by the Judicial Council of California said the bench needs 360 more judges to keep up with the state's skyrocketing population. In response, the Legislature proposed hiring 150 trial-court judges during a three-year span.
Funding for the first 50 positions was approved last year, and AB159 would allow for a second hiring phase.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office has not yet appointed anyone to those 50 slots, and many observers attribute the stall to changes in the nominating process aimed at increasing diversity on the bench. Those changes have included the governor bringing in a new appointments secretary, Sharon Majors-Lewis, who has been busy revising the state's judicial-application form and doing outreach.
"That could be a part of why she's spread thin," said Fredericka McGee, general counsel to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez.
Núñez, a leading critic of former appointments secretary John Davies, continues to push for more diversity and transparency in the nominating process, including making public the names of those who sit on local nominating committees.
"We have seen a marked change in the diversity of her appointments," McGee said, noting that nine of 25 judges appointed since Majors-Lewis' arrival are minorities. "It's night and day."
Of the state's 1,600 judges, 73 percent are men, and 70 percent are white. AB159 would continue to require the governor to report the race, gender and ethnicity of judicial applicants and appointees.
The fate of other judicial-branch-funding items remains unclear. On Wednesday, the state's Department of Finance released a report that shows a $764 million revenue shortfall as of May, prompting the governor to call for belt-tightening.
That could spell trouble for other Judicial Council priorities that have met resistance in the Assembly, including $11 million a year to enhance retirement benefits, $25 million to beef up court security and $5 million for a pilot program that would provide poor litigants with state-funded attorneys in civil cases.
The joint legislative budget committee has given the green light to fund the initial phases of court construction in five counties: Los Angeles, Madera, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Joaquin, including $5.9 million to address seismic and safety concerns at the Long Beach courthouse.
Proposals to fund courthouse projects in Calaveras, Lassen, San Benito and Tulare counties are pending.
Joint-Panel Backing Essentially Ensures State Budget Spot
By Gary Scott
Daily Journal Staff Writer
SACRAMENTO - A bill that would add 50 judges to the California bench won the support of a joint legislative budget committee this week, essentially ensuring that money for the positions will be included in the state budget.
The measure is one of the few items related to judicial-branch funding on which Democrats in the state Senate and Assembly have agreed.
78-1 Assembly Vote
AB159, sponsored by Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, provides $27 million in one-time costs and $40 million annually to hire an unspecified number of trial-court judges, though all parties seem to have settled on 50.
The bill, passed Wednesday in the Assembly by a 78-1 vote, also would convert as many as 162 subordinate judicial officers to Superior Court judges at a rate of 16 a year.
360 Judges Needed
AB159 will move to the state Senate for approval. The governor had included funding for the positions in his proposed budget, released in January.
"The current shortage of judicial resources ... means Californians cannot get the fair, timely and equitable justice they seek every day in our courts," Jones said in a statement. "My legislation will help fill this critical justice gap."
A study by the Judicial Council of California said the bench needs 360 more judges to keep up with the state's skyrocketing population. In response, the Legislature proposed hiring 150 trial-court judges during a three-year span.
Funding for the first 50 positions was approved last year, and AB159 would allow for a second hiring phase.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office has not yet appointed anyone to those 50 slots, and many observers attribute the stall to changes in the nominating process aimed at increasing diversity on the bench. Those changes have included the governor bringing in a new appointments secretary, Sharon Majors-Lewis, who has been busy revising the state's judicial-application form and doing outreach.
"That could be a part of why she's spread thin," said Fredericka McGee, general counsel to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez.
Núñez, a leading critic of former appointments secretary John Davies, continues to push for more diversity and transparency in the nominating process, including making public the names of those who sit on local nominating committees.
"We have seen a marked change in the diversity of her appointments," McGee said, noting that nine of 25 judges appointed since Majors-Lewis' arrival are minorities. "It's night and day."
Of the state's 1,600 judges, 73 percent are men, and 70 percent are white. AB159 would continue to require the governor to report the race, gender and ethnicity of judicial applicants and appointees.
The fate of other judicial-branch-funding items remains unclear. On Wednesday, the state's Department of Finance released a report that shows a $764 million revenue shortfall as of May, prompting the governor to call for belt-tightening.
That could spell trouble for other Judicial Council priorities that have met resistance in the Assembly, including $11 million a year to enhance retirement benefits, $25 million to beef up court security and $5 million for a pilot program that would provide poor litigants with state-funded attorneys in civil cases.
The joint legislative budget committee has given the green light to fund the initial phases of court construction in five counties: Los Angeles, Madera, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Joaquin, including $5.9 million to address seismic and safety concerns at the Long Beach courthouse.
Proposals to fund courthouse projects in Calaveras, Lassen, San Benito and Tulare counties are pending.
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