Gov. Timothy M. Kaine hopes to succeed where lawmakers failed three times: filling top judgeships.
Kaine said yesterday that he will make appointments to the State Corporation Commission, Virginia Supreme Court and seven circuit-court slots in Portsmouth, Norfolk, Hampton, Virginia Beach and Stafford County.
His picks must be endorsed in January by the General Assembly. If they are not, they automatically leave the courts, creating new vacancies.
A continuing legislative impasse over judges is attributed to the partisan split at the state Capitol and rivalries among lawmakers.
This past winter and spring as well as during this week's special session, the Republican-controlled House and Democratic Senate deadlocked over prized judgeships.
Carl Tobias, University of Richmond law professor, said Democrat Kaine "should attempt to thread the needle" with candidates who meet his standards and those of the House.
Otherwise, Tobias said, the pool of prospects will shrink because few lawyers will risk giving up their practices unless assured General Assembly backing in January.
Del. William R. Janis, R-Henrico, who vets judicial candidates for the House GOP, is not confident lawmakers will cooperate with Kaine.
"I'm not sure we are any more capable of avoiding impasse next January than we are today," said Janis. "It is not a threat."
Kaine said at a news conference yesterday that he hoped to announce his appointments by the end of the month. His choices could include the first African-American for the SCC, which regulates business and industry.
Judge Theodore V. Morrison Jr. retired in December.
G. Steven Agee left the Supreme Court last week to become a judge of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In February, House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, threatened to remove earlier Kaine picks to the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals unless GOP legislators could pick a new SCC judge.
Kaine said Republican insistence on installing judges, but then holding out the prospect of removing those appointed when the legislature failed to do so had a "bizarre, tortured rationale to it."
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com.
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