BATON ROUGE, La. — In your Breakdown: Louisiana has one more election day this year, and it’s an important one to get out and vote for. There are four constitutional amendments on the ballot.
Amendment 1 reads:
“Do you support an amendment to allow the Supreme Court to sanction a judge upon an investigation by the Judiciary Commission, and provide that the recommended sanction shall be instituted by the Judiciary Commission or by a majority of the Supreme Court, and to provide for the appointment of five members of the judiciary commission?”
Here’s the background.
The Louisiana Judiciary Commission was created by the state constitution in 1968.
They are, to put it very simply, the ‘judge police’ over all of the state’s courts. Only at the commission’s recommendation can the Louisiana Supreme Court disqualify, suspend, remove, or otherwise discipline a judge for behaving badly, or involuntarily retire judges who can no longer perform their jobs.
Currently, the commission is made of nine members who serve four-year terms.
They include: one court of appeal judge and two district judges selected by the Supreme Court; two attorneys admitted to the practice of law for at least ten years and one attorney admitted to the practice of law for at least three but not more than ten years, selected by the Conference of Court of Appeal judges; and three citizens, not lawyers, judges or public officials, selected by the Louisiana District Judges Association.
This amendment would add five members: two appointees from the House speaker, two appointees from the state Senate President, and one appointee from the governor.
But there are a few more things.
A vote ‘yes’ on this amendment would increase the state Judiciary Commission to 14. It would also give Supreme Court members the power to ask the commission to start an investigation, give them the authority to temporarily disqualify a judge while the commission investigates, and expand the list of reasons a judge could be disciplined.
A vote ‘no’ keeps the current Judiciary Commission to nine members and maintains their current balance of power.
Non-partisan PAR Louisiana has more on the arguments for and against each amendment.
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