A majority of the New York state Senate voted for Judge Hector LaSalle, Gov. Kathy Hochul‘s nominee for the chief justice of the country’s highest court, Wednesday, officially made a stinging defeat for Hochul who has been all but guaranteed since mid-January.
It is the first time the state Senate has rejected a New York Court of Appeals chief justice nominee in the 46 years since he entered the Senate confirmation role.
The partisan breakdown of the state Senate vote is unusual, as is the resulting legislative wrangling.
Although Hochul is a Democrat, the opposition of fellow Democrats ensured LaSalle’s defeat on the floor of the state Senate. These Democrats challenge LaSalle’s judicial record on union rights, civil rights and abortion rights.
The Senate ultimately rejected LaSalle by a vote of 39-20. Only one Democrat, state Senator Monica Martinez, voted for LaSalle, and one Republican, state Senator Mario Mattera, voted against him.
In fact, LaSalle would not have received a floor vote if not for the state Senate’s Republican minority.
State Senate Democrats considered the matter closed after that lost slightly LaSalle’s nomination in the Judiciary Committee vote on January 18. The majority party supports that the committee’s hearing and vote are sufficient to fulfill the constitutional responsibility to provide “advice and consent” in appointing the governor.
Hochul — and state Senate Republicans — maintained that the state constitution requires a vote on LaSalle’s nomination by the entire Senate. Hochul instead left open the possibility that he would demand a floor vote in LaSalle.
In the end, state Senate Republicans, rather than Hochul, pushed for action to nominate LaSalle. State Senator Anthony Palumbo, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sued Democratic colleagues on February 9 to force a floor vote on LaSalle’s nomination. Oral arguments are scheduled to be heard in the case this Friday.
State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D), who notified members of the floor vote hours before it began, said in a statement before Wednesday’s vote that the Democrats who rule the chamber are seeking to end “continuous disruption” to the legislature. and head off a potentially lengthy legal battle.
“This court case, if allowed to continue, will drag on for months and disrupt our justice system,” he said. “It’s time to finish this thing.”
Hans Pennink/Associated Press
In his comments on the floor, Palumbo accused Democrats of choosing a floor vote in the GOP minority to avoid having to make a case in court and suffer an embarrassing defeat.
He noted that the two state senators who were absent Wednesday — Luis Sepúlveda and Kevin Thomas — were among several Democrats who supported LaSalle’s advancement out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. (A third Democrat, Jamaal Bailey, who had voted to advance LaSalle out of the committee in January without expressing a preference for actual confirmation, ended up voting “no” on LaSalle’s confirmation Wednesday.)
“The chief justice of the highest court in a country of 20 million people is not a nuisance, and neither is the constitution,” Palumbo said.
LaSalle is “a tremendous legal expert, who calls balls and strikes,” he said. “And he’s an old liberal Democrat, which apparently isn’t good enough.”
Palumbo and other Republicans relish the opportunity to embarrass Democrats for taking such steps to stop the first Latino nominee for the highest court post. In an effort to refute accusations that LaSalle has an anti-union record, at least one GOP lawmaker also noted that he comes from a family with many union members.
But Democrats insist they have the right to reject candidates based on judicial philosophies they consider too conservative, especially at a time when the New York court has a chance to balance the influence of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It’s not enough that people can call the ball and strike. It’s important how you see the strike zone,” said state Senator Andrew Gounardes, Democrat of Brooklyn. “And in case after case, I find significant concern with the way Justice LaSalle views the strike zone.”
The process to name a new chief justice now begins anew, at a time in the legislative calendar when budget negotiations are likely to slow down the final confirmation vote. Before it begins, the New York Commission on Judicial Nominations must create a new list of seven potential candidates from which Hochul can choose a new candidate.
Beyond the judiciary, Wednesday’s vote, which is locked in a short-term progressive win, could scramble party politics in the Empire State in a way that could have unpredictable effects on the left in the future.
Hochul’s informal alliance with the state Senate’s Republican minority recalls an earlier era when other moderate Democratic governors cooperated more openly with Republicans in the state Senate. Former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo (D) was even accused of propping up the breakaway faction of the centrist Democrats who helped keep the room in the hands of the Republicans from 2013 to 2018.