After 15 years, the cross-endorsement scheme for judicial nominations in 9th Judicial District of New York is being rekindled. Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA), a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, working to change the way lawyers become, and remain judges, has called upon two NYS Supreme Court nominees under a judicial cross-endorsement ‘deal’ between the Democratic and Republican political leaders of the 9th Judicial District of New York to rescind their acceptances or face serious repercussions.
See www.Judgewatch.org for CJA’s 9/27/2005 letter to the judicial nominees, advising them that steps will be taken to enforce the penal provisions of the Election Law, including initiation of civil rights and other legal action. CJA is planning an educational campaign to rally all support needed to protect the sanctity of the franchise of Ninth District electors, who are effectively being disenfranchised.
Under the latest judicial cross-endorsement ‘deal’, Democrat Chief Administrative Judge, Jonathan Lippman (to whom all state judges are subservient), has cooperated with the party bosses, apparently secure in the belief it is currently safe to test the waters. It is shocking that our highest administrative judicial officer would countenance such an arrangement -- created purely for his own personal gain. His announced ambition is not to sit on the trial bench of the Supreme Court, for which seat he will be running, uncontested, for election this year, but to be designated for an Appellate Division judgeship after he is elected.
CJA Director, Doris L. Sassower, former President of the New York Women’s Bar Association, stated that “It’s bad enough that Judge Lippman would instigate and accept a political deal guaranteeing his uncontested nomination at the Judicial Nominating Conventions of both major parties in the 9th Judicial District, in itself a felony. But, even more beyond the pale is that he has countenanced the trading of his own judicial nomination by the Democrats for the Republicans’ nomination of Republican County Judge Joseph Alessandro, found ‘not qualified’ by the Westchester County Bar Association.”
For documentation and full background on the infamous 1989 Three-Year Deal, involving Republican and Democratic political bosses trading of seven 9th Judicial District judgeships over a three-year period and the ensuing Election Law litigation brought by the 9th Judicial Committee, grass-roots precursor to CJA.
