GOP’s Role in Snarl of County Judiciary

The Orange County Bar Assn. is suing the state to get more judges to help reduce the grotesque backlog of civil cases here, and state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) says that the problem of too few judges is the fault of the Democratic leadership of the Legislature. Bergeson is a loyal Republican, but she is wrong.

There are two reasons why there are too many cases pending in Orange County Superior Court, and they are both the result of the conduct of her party.

The first reason why there is a backlog is that Republican Gov. George Deukmejian is apparently incapable of filling vacancies in judicial positions in a timely fashion and won’t even appoint judges who were elected by the people in June to fill courtrooms that were therefore left empty until the following January, all for petty partisan reasons. In fact, some judicial seats have been left unfilled for upwards of a year, and I would estimate that the total courtroom hours lost would range from 10 judge-years to more than twice that number, all accumulated days when there was no one filling a judicial office because the Republican governor would not do his job.

The second reason is that, despite the high reputation and good service of Orange County’s two state senators, Bergeson and John Seymour, on the Assembly side Orange County has no clout at all because none of Orange County’s five Assembly Republicans is interested in or capable of getting serious legislation passed.

Orange County--and the rest of California--deserves to have judicial vacancies filled promptly so that the people’s business in the courts can be taken care of promptly. Orange County deserves to have members of the Assembly who are interested in and capable of doing the work that has to be done. Orange County deserves to have enough competent judges on hand to give parties in litigation the opportunity to get to trial as fast as they like.

Isn’t it about time Republicans took responsibility for solving problems instead of once again simply blaming Democrats for problems caused by their own refusal or inability to do what they were elected to do?

JIM TOLEDANO

Costa Mesa