“It’s very confusing, because it’s not straightforward [about] what we understand about elections””

Anne Hart, Sullivan County Democratic Committee chair

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — On November 7, Sullivan County voters will vote for up to three out of a total of four candidates for State Supreme Court of the 3rd Judicial District. 

State Supreme Court elections are not conducted in the same way as traditional political candidate elections and often fly under the radar. 

Judges elected to the State Supreme Court serve 14-year terms, with jurisdiction over both criminal and civil proceedings and potentially impacting thousands of people. Therefore, a position on the State Supreme Court is highly influential. 

The Third Judicial District, which includes Sullivan County, had 6,433 court filings in 2022 according to court records. Based on this an elected justice in the third JD will see approximately 10,000 filings over the course of their 14-year appointment.

So, how do candidates for State Supreme Court in the 3rd Judicial District (JD) get to the ballot?

Before voters elect justices by popular vote, there is a selection process to determine the candidates.

The process begins well before Election Day, during the September primaries. Individuals petition and, in larger counties, run in primaries to represent their assembly district and their county as a judicial delegate. 

Next, all the judicial delegates from the seven counties that make up the third JD meet at a party-nominating convention to cast votes to determine which candidates will appear on the ballot. 

But, according to both Anne Hart, Sullivan County Democratic Committee chair, and Gary Maas, Sullivan County Republican chair at the time of the convention, by this time the candidates have almost always already been settled on. The votes cast at the nominating conventions by the judicial delegates are very rarely ever controversial or surprising.  

“It’s very confusing, because it’s not straightforward [about] what we understand about elections,” said Hart. 

The inner workings

County party committees vet candidates who are interested in the Supreme Court candidacy. Larger countries such as Albany, which is part of the third JD, have a law committee with active bar association members and practicing attorneys who vet interested candidates. Executives of the county party committees then decide to approve the candidate choices that will be voted on by the judicial delegates at the nominating conventions. 

During this process, party committees and judicial delegates have the opportunity to vet prospective candidates.

Hart and current Sullivan County Republican Committee chair Greg Goldstein said that judicial delegates tend to be attorneys. “It’s good when you have attorneys that are judicial delegates, and by and large most of them are, because they understand more than you and I,” said Hart.  

Former 3rd Judicial District Supreme Court justice Anthony Kane spoke about the process he went through before becoming a candidate.  “The selection process is pretty sorted out by who’s made a commitment to run and who contacted delegates and made arrangements to have their votes. It’s very rare that there is any kind of rebellion at the judicial conference.”

An urban bias?

Because Albany is the largest county, most of the candidates come from there. However, Hart said, “We [the Sullivan County Democratic Committee and judicial delegates] do definitely participate in the process and hope to come to a consensus with the judicial delegates and committees across the judicial district.” 

Kane explained the vetting process he went through, describing interviews with the Women’s Bar Association of Albany County and answering questions about his law education, practice experience, law organization participation and civic engagement. “They wanted to get a sense of who you were. An ethical sense,” he said.

Hart describes the current vetting process similarly, saying, “You want to find out from them why they think they’re qualified to be a judge.” She added that you also “want to know what it is in their experience that would enable them to be fair and impartial and listen to all sides in whatever the dispute might be.”

The political committees, even with the help of attorneys and members of various bar associations for vetting, ultimately determine the candidates, as judicial delegates almost always take party cues. 

This vetting process and ultimate determination of judicial candidates by party leaders has been critiqued as undemocratic. The Brennan Center for Justice writes about this issue, pointing out the lack of accountability in party leaders’ decisions and less transparency around judicial quality.  

Hart touches on this aspect of the judicial elections, saying “The whole process is sort of counterintuitive to the democratic process as we know it.” She says she “used to feel it was very unfair” and that “people should be able to decide,” but now “having been involved in this process, the way it’s being done is actually much more thoughtful,” and “how important it is that you get someone who will be the voice of justice for people.”

Enter politics or not

The party committees are also inherently political, a reality that can influence which candidates are placed on the ballot. Hart says when considering candidates “you can look at what their past has been to see if they’re leaning in any way that goes against what you as a Democrat might believe in.” She gives the example of abortion as one of those issues.

Goldstein said that when considering judicial candidates, “the big thing is the second amendment” in addition to “conservative ideas,” and “bail reform, and letting these criminals out back on the street without any reform.”

Despite the partisan backbone of determining the candidates for the New York State Supreme Court, the position is designed to operate without political considerations. 

In interviews with all four candidates, when asked about the choice to run on a particular political ticket (Democratic, Republican, Working Families Party and Conservative), the candidates said that though they were running on a political ticket, it had no bearing on distributing justice. 

Candidate Dana Salazar, who is running on the Republican and Conservative ticket, said, “As judicial candidates, we’re apolitical. While we all run with the endorsements of various political parties, we’re intentionally supposed to be apolitical so that politics doesn’t interfere or color any decisions that we make.”

Richard Rivera, running on the Democratic and Working Families tickets, echoed Salazar. “I’m honored to be running on both of those parties. But the way I look at it, none of that matters. We have to run on a party line, but when we take the bench it’s not about who is Republican or Democrat in front of you. None of that matters when you’re on the bench.”

The other two candidates, Daniel Lynch and Sherri J. Brooks-Morton, are running on the Democratic and Working Families lines. Lynch said, “I would hope that anyone who is running for a judgeship when he/she is elected leaves politics to the side.” 

“When people are in front of me it doesn’t matter whatever party they are,” Brooks-Morton said. 

Kane summed up the involvement of partisan politics involvement in judicial elections by saying that the political system is “the only mechanism that we have that’s in place to organize a campaign and help get it out... so it’s a necessity under the system that we function under,  so there is going to be a degree of partisanship.”

Voting for State Supreme Court Justice takes place on November 7.

The River Reporter interviewed each of the 2023 Third Judicial District candidates for New York State Supreme Court here

For information on voting for State Supreme Court Justice of the 3rd Judicial District and voting in general here.  

Data in paragraph four, provided by the court, was added to this article on November 2, 2023.