NEW YORK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - New York Gov. David Paterson said on Wednesday he was “outraged” that no women were nominated to lead the state’s Court of Appeals, its highest court, forcing him to choose from seven men recommended by a panel.
Paterson said he believes the state constitution obliges him to pick one of the men nominated by a 12-member panel. But he directed state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to explore options for picking a new chief judge for the appeals court that is considered one of the most influential state courts in the country.
“Because we’re citizens of a state in addition to being public servants, we’re outraged,” Paterson said, adding that the panel’s rejection of more than half the population could discourage women.
“What we really wanted to do is just publicly acknowledge … the disappointing fact that they spanned the globe and couldn’t find a woman in New York state that was qualified to serve as the chief judge,” he said. Still, he called the seven male nominees highly qualified.
Four women served on the nominating panel, which was created in the late 1970s to reform the highly politicized way judges were chosen.
The current chief judge of Court of Appeals, Judith Kaye, resigns at the end of the year. Three other women serve on the seven-member court, and Paterson, joined by the Democratic attorney general, questioned why none of them was nominated.
This gives me hope that he won’t appoint a white guy (such as Bill Clinton, or the AG, Andrew Cuomo) to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat in the Senate. Paterson had once hoped to fill her seat himself if she were elected President, but fate (and Republican political operatives) intervened and Paterson found himself becoming governor after Eliot Spitzer was forced out. He hasn’t said who he’s going to pick, but he has said that nobody has been shy about asking him to appoint them, or people they support. But given that the press loves to talk about Bill Clinton or Andrew Cuomo getting the job, as unlikely as that is (Clinton because, why? and Cuomo because he’s in the middle of taking on AIG for its abuse of bailout funds and its shoddy practices), one starts to wonder if he’d give in to that kind of pressure, or pressure from powerful interests. Especially when there are such good women serving New York in Congress already, like Nydia Velasquez, Carolyn Maloney, Nita Lowey and Louise Slaughter.
But this? This makes me think that he’s got his priorities right.
And seriously — not one of the three women on the Court of Appeals makes it onto the list of seven? You could appoint all of the members of the CoA other than Judith Kaye and still have room for one more on the list. What I’d like to know is, how many of the three men on the court got onto the list?
(Via Echidne.)
Ciparick. What about Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick? Damned fine Court of Appeals judge.
I saw Caroline Kennedy may be in the running for the Senate seat.
Oh, fuck her. You shouldn’t get handed a seat with no legislative experience just because you’re a Kennedy.
I think Paterson would have a bloodbath on his hands if he passed over qualified, experienced politicians and put her in there because she’s a Kennedy. And I think he knows that.
Teddy SanFran has an argument, which I find compelling, that Kennedy’s only floating herself/Teddy’s only floating her to make it difficult for Paterson to pick Andy Cuomo, who was publicly rather unpleasant to her cousin during their ugly divorce.
That does make sense. Though I’d like to see him taken out of the running because he’s kind of busy taking AIG et al. to the mat.
Well, Schumer’s working hard behind the scenes for Suozzi, I guess on the theory that you can’t have enough people in the pockets of Wall Street running the country in times like these.