Conquering Fools

Today, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty awarded the mountaintop of MN justice to an old friend. It is this, a seemingly generous donation to another friend that warrants a good mental walk through.

My initial thought was what about the absence of a process similar to the US Supreme Court confirmation hearings? What about the Framer's idea that there should remain that barrier between the executive office and the bar of judicial reason? Should this process be discarded on the grounds that this is how it has always been executed? Or should one Minnesota tradition be reevaluated.

Obviously, these questions are bigger than a short dip in the pool of judicial nominations. But the opportunity is present.

There are numerous reasons why our government system has a 3 branch system in place. It assures that motivations of the pillars of government are kept in check and regulated by each other. It doesn’t allow our system to be overwhelmed by alliances between any two of the three. In this case, the executive is allowed the opportunity to hand pick the next candidate. End of story. But in the age of partisan strategy, is a neutral candidate a realistic conclusion? Or has the media transformed me into the political skeptic?

Now in all fairness, justices are elected to Minnesota’s highest court for 6 year terms. But, in light of court vacancies, the Governor retains the right to appoint the successor. But, even though this vacancy was made public weeks ago, isn’t there enough time to arrange for an election? Why not promote from within? In this case, the Governor’s appointee is the first to be Chief Justice to not have any court experience in the last 70 years…or since FDR was rolling around the white house. Why the break in tradition? Was the court lacking a competent replacement? Highly doubtful, but in light of change in the public arena all the right things will be said so we will never get the full breathe of internal whispering.

If the state were to propose having some type of approval hearing arranged at least the appearance of a legitimate process would be in place. Having a dual party board or a panel of sitting state justices interview the candidate would be sounder and would leave less room for Governor favors; especially in this case. Had the newly appointed Chief Justice not been a former Law partner of the Governor maybe the distrust wouldn’t be as strong. Now the disadvantages to having this additional step in the approval process would take time, funding, and a revision to the state laws for selecting justices. I feel that 2 of the 3 are easy to arrange. It is the funding that is the key. The Governor is already calling for a 4% decrease in court funding state wide in his new budget plans. In light of this, allocating any more capital to start what essentially would be another bureaucratic committee is far from happening. But, stepping away from the funding and time, the final rationale would revolve around doing the right thing. Now it seems that today’s appointment has gone as smoothly as possible. It doesn’t appear that a lot of backlash has been stirred and that not too much will remain of this subject after this posting. But, to give the public the right representative in our courts, then the right process should be in place.

So be it for my two cents…