New York state senator sues to force vote on blocked chief judge nominee

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – A Republican New York state senator filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to force a Senate vote on Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul’s pick to be the state’s chief judge, after lawmakers blocked the nomination last month.

State Senator Anthony Palumbo, who represents a Long Island district, said in a complaint filed in state court that New York’s constitution requires the full 63-member Senate to vote on whether to confirm appellate judge Hector LaSalle to the post.

The Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-9 last month to reject the nomination of LaSalle after unions and liberal advocacy groups claimed that his record is too conservative.

Palumbo in the lawsuit said the state constitution, which requires the governor to appoint a chief judge “with the advice and consent of the Senate,” was designed to prevent such an outcome. LaSalle is the first nominee for chief judge to be rejected by the Senate committee.

Allowing the committee to block a nominee “would insulate individual senators from any public scrutiny that a full floor vote provides, reducing the process to a small number of senators controlling the outcome,” Palumbo’s lawyers wrote.

A spokesman for the Senate’s Democratic majority did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Palumbo sued the Senate, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and the senators who voted against LaSalle.

At last month’s confirmation hearing, Judiciary Committee members peppered LaSalle with pointed questions about his decisions that they said show bias toward prosecutors, employers and an anti-abortion group.

LaSalle said his critics had mischaracterized his record and that he supports abortion access, workers’ rights to unionize and the constitutional rights of criminal defendants.

New York’s chief judge heads the seven-member Court of Appeals, which has the final say in interpreting state laws, and oversees the state’s massive court system.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)