![]() Among other things, they argued that LaSalle, a former prosecutor, would be even more conservative than the DiFiore-led Court of Appeals on criminal justice issues. The case against LaSalleĪ few days before Hochul announced the LaSalle nomination, a group of 46 law professors wrote to her laying out the substantive case against the eventual nominee. Having been burned so many times by Republican appointees on federal courts, Democrats might no longer be willing to roll the dice on judges who are technocratically proficient but ideologically uncertain. LaSalle’s story, then, is perhaps most interesting not for what it says about New York, but for what it says about the Democratic Party’s increasing sensitivity about judges. LaSalle was the only Latino on that list, and local reporters have speculated that Hochul wanted to appoint the state’s first Latino chief judge.Īnd so, Hochul has managed to pick a judge who divides her party, who places powerful Latinos in New York at odds with labor, and whose nomination appears likely to fail in a state Senate where Democrats have a supermajority. By law, Hochul was required to pick a chief judge nominee from a list of seven ideologically diverse candidates chosen by the state’s Commission on Judicial Nomination. It’s unclear why Hochul chose a judge whose record includes such an obvious red flag for labor leaders, but Hochul’s choices were somewhat limited. Hans Pennink/APĭemocrats currently control 42 seats in the 63-seat New York Senate, so these defections mean LaSalle cannot be confirmed without Republican votes. Hector LaSalle, right, talks with other guests before Kathy Hochul’s inauguration ceremony in Albany, New York, on January 1. At least a dozen state senate Democrats publicly oppose LaSalle, including the chamber’s deputy majority leader and some who identify as Latino. LaSalle, who is Latino, has received support from some prominent Latino Democrats, but his nomination otherwise landed with a thud in the state senate, which must vote to confirm Hochul’s nominee. That may have cost the party control of the US House for the next two years.Īnd so numerous New York Democrats appear to be in no mood for a chief judge nominee who may not, as one state senator put it, use their office to protect New Yorkers “from the dangerous leanings of the US Supreme Court.” Meanwhile, back at home, the New York Court of Appeals struck down gerrymandered congressional maps that Democrats hoped would counterbalance Republican gerrymanders in other states - and it did so in a 4-3 decision by Chief Judge DiFiore. Wade is dead, the Voting Rights Act is barely breathing, and New York’s own gun laws were recently gutted by a US Supreme Court that Republicans spent decades capturing. Hochul also announced this nomination after Democrats received several painful reminders of the powerful policymaking role played by high-level appellate judges. So it was entirely predictable that organized labor, an important Democratic constituency, would come out in force against LaSalle. ![]() Perhaps most significantly, it includes an opinion that LaSalle joined which could allow employers to target union leaders personally with lawsuits. ![]() Mid-level judges in state courts rarely hear the kind of blockbuster political cases that fuel Supreme Court confirmation fights.īut the case against LaSalle does involve two extraordinarily contentious issues: criminal justice and the rights of unions. Their substantive case against LaSalle is relatively thin, at least compared to the bulging opposition research file that might be produced on a US Supreme Court nominee. So Hochul’s pick to replace DiFiore is expected to wield the balance of power between these two factions.īefore Hochul picked LaSalle, multiple left-leaning groups urged her to choose someone else - fearing that LaSalle would most likely restore the same power balance that existed under DiFiore. Her resignation split the six remaining Court of Appeals judges between a three-judge conservative faction and three more liberal judges. While in office, DiFiore did not just hold the formal position of chief judge, she also led a narrow, four-judge majority that is widely perceived as more conservative than the Democratic majority that controls the state legislature. Last July, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore of New York’s Court of Appeals (in New York, the highest court is known as the “Court of Appeals”) unexpectedly announced that she would step down at the end of August. ![]() Kathy Hochul must have known she was picking a fight with her fellow Democrats when she nominated Hector LaSalle, a mid-level appeals court judge, to be her state’s most powerful jurist. ![]()
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