Governor David Paterson asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for legal alternatives concerning the chief judge nominees list. With Chief Judge Judith Kaye retiring from the State Court of Appeals this year, a state panel submitted a list of candidates to replace her--the state constitution says the governor must pick from that list--but Paterson was "disturbed" that the list lacked women!
The governor said, "The issue is not the merit of the candidates who have been brought forward, they're outstanding. The issue is that I don't accept that there wasn't a woman in this state that wasn't qualified to serve on the Court of Appeals." And Cuomo added, "For the commission to say we searched the state, we couldn't find a single solitary qualified woman to serve on the bench, something is wrong with either the process, or the legislation, or the way it was administered."
The Daily Politics has some more Paterson quotes, including, "It is not my desire to go back and start this process over because then those seven individuals would suffer and I don't want them to suffer ...But I've got to wonder how this group would feel comfortable sending forth a selection team of seven people and not one of them represents half of the human race." Capitol Confidential notes that he contrasted the list with the euphoria of Barack Obama's presidential victory.
