Process of Judge Selection Set Up

The Bush administration and California’s two Democratic senators have reached agreement on a process for judicial nominations that will give each party significant ability to veto potential judges.

Under the deal, which Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer announced Tuesday, “you won’t get someone from the extreme right or the extreme left” as a federal judicial nominee, said Feinstein aide Jim Lazarus.

U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian, who was appointed by President Reagan, said the arrangement will lead to candidates “between the 45 yard lines”--meaning not too far from the center.

The central element of the process will be a bipartisan Judicial Advisory Committee. The panel will have subcommittees in each of the state’s four federal judicial districts. Those subcommittees will be composed of three Democratic and three Republican members. A judicial nomination will be forwarded to the White House only if it gets at least four subcommittee votes.

Gerald L. Parsky, a prominent Republican attorney and investment banker who is chairman of Aurora Capital Partners in West Los Angeles, will chair the overall committee.

Currently the federal District Court based in Los Angeles, which has jurisdiction over cases from San Luis Obispo south through Orange County and east to the state border, has five vacancies, more than any other federal trial court, according to the court’s chief judge, Terry G. Hatter. The district courts in San Diego and San Francisco each have one vacancy. Only the bench in the 4th District, based in Sacramento, is full.

Under caseload formulas established by officials in Washington, the Los Angeles-based Central District of California is entitled to four more judges, in addition to those who will fill the five vacancies, Hatter said. Legislation is pending to give the court two more temporary judges. Feinstein is also pushing a measure that would add five permanent and three temporary judges in San Diego, because of the burgeoning caseload of deportation matters.

Under the committee’s procedures, each subcommittee will be responsible for naming three to five possible nominees for each vacancy in its jurisdiction. Parsky will review those recommended by the subcommittee and forward them to the White House for final selection. Parsky said he has the option to send one or more names to the White House.

“We hope the committee work will begin right away,” Parsky said. Los Angeles attorney Eric George, who was formerly counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee under Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), is serving as Parsky’s deputy.

The three Republicans on each of the subcommittees, each picked by Parsky, will also have the responsibility for making recommendations on candidates for the U.S. attorney and the U.S. marshal in each district. The Democrats will not have a voice in those recommendations, because the positions are not lifetime appointments and traditionally are considered to be more within the prerogative of the administration in power. Still, nominees for those posts, like the judgeships, are subject to Senate confirmation.

The Los Angeles subcommittee will be chaired by Elwood Lui, a former state Court of Appeal judge who is now a partner at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, one of the nation’s largest law firms. The other Republican attorneys on the Los Angeles subcommittee are Robert C. Bonner, who served as a federal judge and U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, and Thomas R. Malcolm, a partner in Jones Day’s Irvine office, who advised Pete Wilson on the selection of federal judges when Wilson was in the Senate.

The Democratic members of the Los Angeles subcommittee are Joseph W. Cotchett of Cotchett, Petrie & Simon in Burlingame; Holly J. Fujie of Buchalter, Nemer, Fields & Younger in Los Angeles; and Wylie A. Aitken, a personal injury lawyer from Santa Ana. Cotchett, who specializes in complex litigation, and Aitken have previously aided Boxer in picking judges. Fujie, who specializes in insurance law, previously aided Feinstein.

The attorneys chairing the other subcommittees are Charles H. Bell Jr., an election law specialist in Sacramento; Joseph P. Russionello, former U.S. attorney in San Francisco; and Meryl L. Young, a business law specialist in Irvine. Two former federal judges, Eugene Lynch in San Francisco and Lawrence Irving in San Diego, both picked by Parsky, are among the other members. The subcommittees include three Asian Americans, one African American and seven women. There are no Latinos.

Judge Hatter said he hoped the committees find a way to work together and pick qualified candidates. “Both parties have screwed up over the past 20 years,” he said. “For 12 years under Reagan and senior Bush, no Democrat was nominated to our court, and under Clinton, no Republican was nominated to our court. We need appointments on merit.”