The House of Delegates and the Senate, which are being run by different parties for the first time since Reconstruction, are feuding over which candidates would make the best judges and which chamber should wield more power in the process.
“It’s all politics,’’ House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong (D-Henry) said. “It’s not a good system. It’s not. But this is a political place.”
Del. David B. Albo, a Fairfax County Republican and chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee, said the GOP-controlled House and Democrat-led Senate agree that each chamber should choose one Supreme Court justice.
But candidates preferred by both chambers now sit on the Virginia Court of Appeals. Elevating those judges would create a pair of vacancies on the appellate court, and the House and Senate cannot agree on who should fill those jobs.
Albo said Republicans should be able to fill both because the GOP controls both the governor’s mansion and the House. “When they had the governor’s office, they had the upper hand. They did this to us,’’ he said. “Now it’s our turn.”
Sen. A. Donald McEachin, a Richmond Democrat who is helping to negotiate judicial appointments, said Democrats should be able to pick one of two appellate judges. “To say they should get three out of four potential judgeships, that’s just not going to happen,” McEachin said.
Without an agreement on the likely Court of Appeals vacancies, the two sides remain effectively stuck on the Supreme Court openings, too.
Legislators in Virginia can select new judges as long as they are in session — either during the regular annual session, which concluded in February, or in one of the special, shorter sessions convened periodically to address one or two particular issues.
After failing to appoint any judges during the regular session this year, legislators returned in April and appointed a slew of lower court judges, including three new ones in Northern Virginia. But six circuit court judges and at least four general district and juvenile and domestic relations court vacancies were left open — along with the two seats on the Supreme Court.
Over the last several weeks, legislators have been back in Richmond repeatedly to work on drawing new maps as part of the once-a-decade redistricting process. The meetings have effectively kept the General Assembly in special session, but legislators haven’t made any more more judicial appointments.
If they adjourn, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) is allowed to name justices to serve until the General Assembly returns for its regular session in January. McDonnell’s office has spoken to legislative leaders about how the governor would fill the openings and is preparing to solicit applications should the General Assembly adjourn, his spokesman Jeff Caldwell said.
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