in what critics are calling another Trenton power grab State lawmakers are mulling over a bill that would change the process for appointing State app pellet judges The Proposal being floated by Senate President Nick scutari would ask voters to amend the state constitution to allow the governor and Senate to choose candidates for those judgeships instead of the Chief Justice of the state supreme court so far 39 advocacy organizations the State Bar Association and the Chief Justice Stuart rabner himself has come out against the idea accusing the move as a way to politicize the judicial process Tim McGuffin is president of the New Jersey State Bar Association and joins me to explain why Tim McGuffin thanks for joining me on this so lay out for me what the bar's main concerns are with this I'll call it a proposal although it hasn't formally been proposed well our concern is that you know this is something that was created 75 years ago the unified court system uh in the 1947 New Jersey Constitution you got to remember that was a convention that took place over three months from June 12th to September 10th of of 1947 carefully considering you know the necessity for a unified court prior to that time in New Jersey we had a a a bunch of courts that were um U different jurisdictions people could choose what courts they wanted to go to and there was a lot of political manipulation and uh we feel that this um is really a threat to judicial Independence and this isn't a problem in New Jersey right now the Appel division is fully staffed um if there was a problem that needs to be solved uh that the Senate could handle would be um eliminating the policy of judicial or senatorial courtesy on judicial appointments uh which is what slows down many appointments and continues to plague uh vacancies uh in in New Jersey we have 39 as of today so it continues to be a with the Senate not moving the nominees that are there and the thought that we're going to have the Senate handle um just the uh intermediate um review judges and the Appel division uh just it's a problem that we don't see as an issue we think we have a very fine appell division um and uh this is something that um if it's going to be done it should be done after careful deliberation not something that's slipped on to a you know a senate committee and uh and move through um uh you know in a rushed fashion if it's not broke don't fix it is what I'm hearing you say um but one of the the items that I heard uh a lawmaker who seems to be favoring this idea is that you know listen uh chief justice rabner is a very moderate you know pragmatic uh justice but if for perhaps we get a Justice in who is uh not who's extreme on either side that this could become problematic given the divisiveness of uh politics of uh the branches of government well the Judiciary is you know very pointedly non-political now obviously getting to the Judiciary is the political point but once you get there once you're past tenure um politics shouldn't come into play it shouldn't come into play when it comes to a tenure decision if you're doing your job correctly um adding more political components to our Judiciary is just not going to be a good thing we found in New Jersey that this unified court system from the Supreme Court to the municipal courts um isn't important for the Chief Justice um to um manage um uh the court system in a way where uh people get to the appell division on their merits um who have experience in the trial courts who are going to be ruling on matters that they they've seen personally so it's not somebody sitting in an ivory Tower who's appointed who's very politically connected who goes straight to the appell division uh you know it's something that we we're very we feel very strongly about because you're right it's not there is no problem here this is just a question of whether uh you want to move away from this carefully thought out unified court system um to a system where we now add another political component to the um uh process of selecting judges who are supposed to be apolitical supposed to be Justice blind is there any validity though Tim to the argument that we've heard the Senate President make that this would enable a larger pool of applicants or of of potential uh judges and also attract more high quality talent because you could ostensibly pull people right from private practice would that be um something that some people may like sure uh but are there qualified people who want to be trial court judges absolutely there are at least 15 people who have gone through the vetting process through the governor through the uh State bars um approval uh jpack committee uh that are ready to go that are being held up only because of uh senatorial courtesy or the failure of the Senate to in a timely fashion put people up uh in front of the senate for an up or down vote that as far as I'm concerned if you're looking for a problem that needs to be fixed senatorial courtesy should be eliminated or there should be a time frame put in place that says if you don't um uh you know somebody comes through the process they're nominated they've been qualified by the state bars um uh vetting process that they should have an up or down vote within 60 or 90 days the problem is you've got people languishing for uh years uh justice apner 18 months she languished her nomination that's not what we want to have happen in the Appel division it's too important they handle 5,000 substantive matters a year 10,000 motions uh it's not something where you can just have have people come in and learn on the job that's what we're also concerned about that that having that trial experience is vital to having a a uh quality appell it um Court Tim McGuffin is the president of New Jersey Bar Association Tim thanks so much thank you Brian