The Daily News has long believed that it is bad public policy to elect judges. Appointed jurists, by a governor and a mayor is much a better system. That is the same view also held by the New York City Bar Association since its 1870 founding.
Both this newspaper and the City Bar also have long supported reorganizing the country’s most complex and confusing state court system. Actually, “reorganizing” isn’t the correct word, because it implies that the current hodgepodge jumble of 10 different trial courts is somehow organized.
But alas, the Legislature and their political friends, who benefit from electing judges and from the sprawling mess, are loath to reform. So in this primary, like every year, we try to guide Democratic voters on the best choices they should make.
Of the 10 candidates in the primaries, only one has failed to file financial disclosure forms and complete the mandatory campaign ethics training: Kenneth Gayle, running for Civil Court in Brooklyn. Gayle was not approved by the City Bar in their ratings of judicial candidates. His rival, Janice Robinson, did both sets of paperwork in a timely fashion, and she was likewise not approved by the City Bar. Despite Robinson’s failing to win the Bar’s stamp of approval, Democrats should vote for Robinson, as Gayle refuses to comply with the rules of the court.
We also part company with the City Bar in the Queens Surrogate primary and endorse Civil Court Judge Wendy Li even though she was not approved. Li was given a thumbs up by the group when she ran for Civil Court in 2018 and there is nothing in her record that should have caused her to lose that approval, such as any ethics or disciplinary issues.
The reason for the non-approval is that Li didn’t have enough experience in this specialized court. But under court reorganization, if it ever happens, there wouldn’t be any such specialized court. A good judge is a good judge. Supreme Court Justice Cassandra Johnson was approved, but she is not in support of necessary reforms to surrogate court, which handles the estates of the dead.
The court has forever been under the control of the Queens Democratic Party through the law firm of Sweeney, Reich & Bolz. As we explained in a 2003 editorial, “King Manton feasts on Queens dead,” referring to now-deceased Queens leader Tom Manton, Jerry Sweeney was appointed by the machine’s surrogate judge as counsel to the public administrator, in 1991, where he makes millions yearly in patronage. Mike Reich runs the party and Frank Bolz is the party’s top election lawyer, throwing challengers off the ballot.
Li would break Sweeny’s lucrative stranglehold by opening up the work to other lawyers, as it’s done in the other boroughs. Li also supports state legislation that would remove the surrogate’s power to appoint the Queens public administrator, a city commissioner making $189,810. PA Lois Rosenblatt, a party election lawyer, has been in office since 2002. Her predecessor, Mindy Trepel, is now at the Sweeney law firm. Vote for Wendy Li.
