Citizens Challenge Judicial Merit Selection Ballot Language.

News and Government Editors/Legal, Political and Business Writers

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 15, 2000

A group of citizens campaigning for merit selection and retention for state trial court judges today petitioned Florida's Supreme Court to require clear and unambiguous ballot language for this November's elections on the issue, and to follow the will of Florida voters who overwhelmingly said they wanted to decide how their trial judges are selected.

This November, Florida voters in all 67 counties and 20 judicial circuits will choose whether to change the way both state circuit and county trial court judges are chosen in their jurisdictions. These "local option" referenda are mandated by the 1998 state-wide passage by voters of Constitutional Revision 7.

Florida voters overwhelmingly approved Revision 7, 56.9 percent to 43.1 percent. In doing so, voters sent a clear message: They want the opportunity to decide whether state trial court judges should be chosen in the same manner as Florida's appellate court judges - by merit selection.

However, this November's ballot language - passed by the Florida Legislature during the 2000 Legislative session - does not even mention the word "merit," the petition noted. The petition asks the Florida Supreme Court to restore ballot language enacted during the 1999 legislative session, or use language contained in Revision 7.

"The voters of Florida have spoken loud and clear. They want a chance to decide the issue of judicial merit selection and retention for themselves in local elections. The current ballot language undermines their right because it is seriously misleading," said Dennis Kainen, a Miami lawyer and former president of the Dade County Bar Association who is a plaintiff in the legal action.

Other plaintiffs include citizen activists and lawyers campaigning for merit selection, including Gerald Richman, a Miami lawyer who is past president of the Florida Bar. Kainen and Richman are co-chairs of Citizens for Judicial Integrity, an independent, non-partisan, multi-county political action committee that wants to remove politics from the judiciary by passing merit selection and retention.

"Judges should not be politicians collecting campaign contributions. We absolutely must take campaign cash out of our courts. Money and equal justice under the law just don't mix," Kainen said.

Merit selection and retention has been used in Florida since 1978 to select state appellate judges, and to fill vacancies of trial judges. Under this system, prospective judges apply to judicial nominating commissions, which screen the applicants and then submit nominees to the governor for appointment. Every six years, all merit-selected judges face the voters, who decide whether to "retain" them for another six years.

"Judicial merit selection and retention has worked exceedingly well in Florida for more than two decades," Kainen said. "It's provided Floridians with very high-quality judges. Most important, it's eliminated the problems associated with forcing judges to raise huge campaign war chests from lawyers who appear before them."