A critical choice for Corzine: Naming chief justice

[Thom Little]

New Jersey will get both a new governor and a new chief justice in 2006.

Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, the first woman to hold the post, must leave the Supreme Court by October, when she turns 70. Her retirement will give Gov.-elect Jon Corzine the opportunity to fill a position of extraordinary power.

The chief justice is far more than just one of seven votes on the state's highest court. The state constitution makes the chief justice "the administrative head of all courts in the state," with the power to assign judges and promote them from the trial bench to the Appellate Division. The chief justice also has some politically sensitive duties, such as appointing the tie-breaking member of the commission that redraws legislative district lines.

Corzine would logically be expected to appoint a fellow Democrat to such a powerful position. But there is a complication. Four of the seven justices are Democrats, and Poritz is Republican. And by a tradition that has not been broken since the modern Supreme Court was created in 1948, no more than four justices can be from the same political party. Corzine is not about to buck that tradition, according to Richard Leone, the head of his transition team.

"We're going to go along with that," Leone said. "That first opening will not be a Democrat. What that means about who gets designated chief justice, I can't say."



http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-4/113583514342450.xml&coll=1

[woldnewton]

1. We should start pressuring the NJ GOP to start telling Bush...

that a balance on the SCOTUS (including a 'swing vote' that would uphold Roe v. Wade (since 1973), affirmative action (since 1964), and other critical measures), is a tradition he should start upholding as well.

What's their # again...?