Merit selection ballot language challenged.

Fearing voters will be confused by language on the merit selection ballot, a group of South Florida lawyers has asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

In their August 15 petition for writ of mandamus, the lawyers charge the ballot language is misleading on the merit selection and retention of trial judges referendum set to go before voters in November. Case No. SC00-1644.

The group has asked the court to strike the new language -- which was adopted by legislators this year -- and instead revive the original ballot language approved by the legislature in 1999.

"The way it is currently worded it would chill any voter because the voter would believe all his rights were being taken away," said Gerald Richman, one of the plaintiffs in the suit and co-chair of Citizens for Judicial Integrity, a political action committee which is advocating merit selection and retention for trial judges. Richman, a former president of The Florida Bar, said he believes legislators reworded the local option ballot language this year in an effort to "make sure it fails."

Solicitor General Tom Warner, who will defend the statute for the state, doesn't buy that argument and said it is the legislature's responsibility to frame the ballot question.

"The choice would be between a question which says do you favor merit selection and retention of judges versus do you favor a process where the judges are selected by the judicial nominating commissions, appointed by the Governor and thereafter stand for retention elections," Warner said. "I think certainly the latest version of the ballot question as proposed by the legislature gives the voters more information about what they are voting on."

Warner said if it comes down to a policy decision as to which version better informs the voters, absent any proof "that this is really causing a huge problem, I think the court should defer to the legislature's policy decision."

The Florida Bar had taken no position on the ballot language challenge, but is on record recommending Florida voters in all circuits adopt merit selection and retention for trial judges. Groups supporting and opposing the challenge are scheduled to address the Bar's Board of Governors when it meets in Ft. Lauderdale August 25, after this News went to press.

"The so-called merit proposals are not necessarily based on merit and we feel that the language is fine," said Oscar Marrero, president of the Cuban American Bar Association. Marrero said CABA has a committee...