Question No. 3 & Judges
Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, October 14, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler
Question No. 3 on the November ballot is the result of H.R. 1113, introduced by the House Judiciary Committee chairman on January 22nd. It passed the House by committee substitute a month later. Then, the going got tough in the Senate. The first two Senate votes fell one vote short of the two-thirds required for a proposed constitutional amendment to pass the General Assembly. The Senate voted three more times before H.R. 1113 finally passed on March 22nd, and the House agreed with the Senate version later that day. That put the proposed change on the November ballot as a question for voters to decide.
Question No. 3 is another long-winded question of 96 words asking voters whether to abolish the current Judicial Qualifications Commission and replace it with an entirely new Commission to be styled by the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Speaker of the House.
Details of the changes are provided in H.B. 808 that would regulate and implement H.R. 1113 if a majority of voters pass it on November 8th. H.B. 808 minimizes judicial participation in the appointment of Commission members. For years, seven members of the Commission have been appointed this way: The Georgia Supreme Court selects two sitting judges, the State Bar of Georgia selects three members of the State Bar, and the Governor appoints two Georgia citizens who are not members of the State Bar.So, it’s important to note that the current Commission has five members of the judicial system, which is entirely appropriate, since their job is to ferret out and discipline judges suspected of disreputable conduct, and the Governor appoints two non-State-Bar members.
But, if voters ratify Question No. 3, high-ranking politicians will appoint five of the seven members. Meaning, the Commission could become extremely political. This is the set-up: The State Supreme Court would appoint two judges from any court of record; the Lieutenant Governor in his capacity as President of the Senate would appoint two – one member of the State Bar and a citizen who is not a member of the State Bar – the Speaker of the House would do likewise; and the Governor would appoint one commissioner who, always, would be chairman over the other six. That’s powerful Executive and Legislative political muscle!
After H.R. 1113 and H.B. 808 passed, the current Commission chairman resigned with this explanation, “In the past eight years the commission has removed more than sixty judges from the bench. I think that you can’t overstate the value of having an independent commission that will look into these citizen complaints. … A system that only disciplines judges who are politically unpopular, and does absolutely nothing to judges who are popular, isn’t a very fair system.”
I’ll vote NO on Question No. 3. For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.