(Washington Insider Magazine) Governor Hochul reacted immediately, warning that the confirmation session had not been fair and hopes to move forward with a full house vote.
With no major surprises, after a five-hour hearing, the New York State Senate Judiciary Committee voted this Wednesday to block the nomination of Governor Kathy Hochul, which would have ratified Héctor LaSalle as the first Latino to hold the position. highest in the New York State Court of Appeals.
This fact marks a chapter in judicial history: It is unprecedented that the state Senate has denied this type of nomination of a governor from the same political party.
The 19-member committee voted 10-9 against bringing Justice LaSalle to a full vote on the full Senate. The 10 who voted against the judge were Democrats; two Democrats supported it, while one Democrat and all six Republicans voted “no recommendation.”
When his name surfaced Dec. 22, liberal groups, including Democratic lawmakers from the progressive wing, immediately made clear their fears that the record of the judge, born on Long Island to Puerto Rican parents, pointed to his siding with conservative judges on the Court of Appeals.
In summary, his critics have defined LaSalle as “anti-abortion, anti-union, anti-immigrant and anti-due process”, after putting on the table a series of “controversial” sentences with which he has been associated. in 14 years of judicial career.
On the other hand, various organizations, bar associations and elected leaders of the Democratic Party continue to reject the label of “conservative”, which deprived the substantive review of his credentials. Which ended in a vote that chilled his nomination.
A Vote Already Sung
Ultimately, only two Senate Democrats, Luis Sepúlveda of The Bronx and Kevin Thomas of Long Island, voted to advance LaSalle’s nomination to a plenary vote. While ten of his colleagues voted against.
In the midst of this true “battle,” the Puerto Rican legislator, Luis Sepúlveda, indicated that he had no record “in his memory” of a Supreme Court nominee who has been the target of so many attacks.
“But we have seen, on the contrary, how dozens of unions, organizations and lawyers’ associations have supported LaSalle’s impeccable judicial career. Let’s check what we have to check. We are not defending his nomination just because he is Latino. He has the credentials and prestige for this position like no one else”, he brandished during the session.
LaSalle is currently the Presiding Judge of the Appellate Division of the Second Judicial Department of the New York State Supreme Court, which handles civil and criminal appeals from Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Westchester County, and half a dozen other counties.
Even before the hearing began, 14 Senate Democrats had already publicly indicated they would reject the nomination if it went to the floor, including several members of the Judiciary Committee.
However, the chairman of this committee, Brad Hoylman-Sigal of Manhattan, promised to hold a “fair hearing” and allow LaSalle to outline his arguments.
“It is critical that this hearing be comprehensive for the candidate,” Hoylman said.
Hochul: “We are waiting for the full Senate”
Minutes after the result of the legislative meeting was known, Governor Hochul issued a statement in which, as was predictable, she showed her disappointment with the result of this vote. Without making it clear what political or legal moves could be expected from her office in the next few hours.
“New Yorkers had the opportunity to hear directly from Judge LaSalle. What they found was an affirmation of his commitment to fairness and justice. He also shared his background and personal views. Including her deep support for organized labor. And an unequivocal belief in the right to abortion,” she remarked.
She added that his nominee for New York’s top judicial position “demonstrated exactly why he is the right person for this position, given his extensive experience, judicial temperament and integrity.”
Hochul concluded that while it was a thorough hearing, it was “not fair.”
“The result was predetermined. Several senators declared how they were going to vote, even before the hearing began. Including those recently granted a seat on the Judiciary Committee. While this commission plays a role. We believe the Constitution requires action by the full Senate.”
LaSalle: “I am a defender of the law”
Before the vote in the Senate, which initially closed the doors to his confirmation to occupy the highest position in the New York court, Judge LaSalle himself promised to “clarify things” about his judicial record, in what was his first public discourse since her name sparked a “war without quarter” between the state president and a cadre of Democratic legislators.
“I grew up in a working class community. In my career, my commitment has been to administer justice in an equal manner, based on the foundations of the laws and the Constitution, ”he stressed on multiple occasions before the“ thrusts ”of legislators.
In several of his interventions, he described himself as a defender of union and electoral rights, the freedom of women’s rights, such as access to abortion.
The lawyer recalled his upbringing in a home for “unionized working class” island parents on Long Island. He insisted before the Committee in Albany that he has worked to break down the barriers that affect marginalized communities. He also reaffirmed his belief in a woman’s right to abortion services.
“Personally, I strongly believe in a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions. I do not want my daughter to have less rights than her mother, ”he clarified.
LaSalle, who in the last hours awoke a group of support that came mainly from the state’s Latino Democratic political class, defended his record for hours.
He unsuccessfully tried to calm the waters of a barrage of lawmakers, labor groups and civil rights advocates who had “sentenced” him over their concerns that he would allegedly side with the more conservative wing of the court.
“Some have said that a judge’s job is to be an umpire, calling balls and strikes. But Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a role model for me and for many Latinos, has astutely observed that the umpires can decide where the strike zone is,” she exemplified.
Everything is Lost?
As analysts project to local media, if, as happened, the committee of 13 Democrats and six Republicans rejected the nominee, there is a possibility that the confirmation process will end up in court. A version that was not confirmed at the close of this note.
Governor Hochul, and some of her supporters who feared this outcome, had already hinted that this committee’s “initial vote” is irrelevant and that their “chosen judge” must be subject to a full Senate vote.
“I am willing to do whatever it takes to get it approved by the committee,” Hochul said last week, when asked if she was considering suing, after raising questions about the constitutional process for the appointment.
The scenario referred to by The New York Times to “save the nomination” of LaSalle, could be found in the call for a vote of the entire House, a space in which the state president would have “greater flexibility to gather enough votes from the Democrats and even some minority Republicans to confirm the judge.
Other unofficial information indicates that the governor was in the process of hiring a litigator to sue the Senate if she blocked the procedure to confirm LaSalle.
Apples of Discord
During the session there was frequent mention of at least three sentences, which in the opinion of the legislators, are “signs of the conservative philosophical positions” of LaSalle.
As members of the judicial commission asserted, in 2007 he joined a unanimous opinion of the court ordering the New York attorney general to limit his subpoena and investigative power to those responsible for a crisis pregnancy center, which are considered units ” anti-abortion”.
That case involved the prosecutor’s investigation into an organization that operated “crisis pregnancy centers,” which sometimes masquerade as reproductive health clinics but try to talk patients out of getting abortions.
The attorney general’s office subpoenaed representatives of these centers, seeking documents as part of an investigation into whether the centers “may be engaged in the unauthorized practice of medicine.”
Meanwhile, the centers challenged the subpoena, claiming it had a “chilling effect” on their First Amendment-protected defense.
For this specific case, accusations were given that the nominated judge had been “hostile to the reproductive rights of women.”
In this direction, state senator John Liu of Queens, concluded at the hearing: “Based on his record, I think it is not unfair that we project what some of his decisions could be in the future.”
Liu stressed the importance of the chief judge nomination process, making clear his position against LaSalle.
“We must keep the state courts as a bulwark against the federal courts, which as we have seen are capable of overturning years of conquests on a series of high-profile issues, such as abortion, for just talking about one issue,” he outlined.
In another sentence put on the table, the Cablevisión case was also recalled, where according to the records, it supported a unanimous decision between the appeals panel of judges, to allow a defamation lawsuit from this company to advance, against individual members of a union.
Another sentence that was part of the cards shuffled this Wednesday in this Senate committee, dates from 2014, where LaSalle was accused of supporting a sentence that allegedly would have drastically limited the right of a criminal defendant to understand what rights he was giving up. when pleading guilty to a crime.
In those cases, the judge clarified that he joined but did not write anything specific that would reinforce the opinion of the majority, which “does not allow us to discern his legal reasoning, nor his personal philosophy.”
This article is authored by Fernando Martínez.
