Merit selection rejected.

Voters in Florida have spoken in favor of continuing to elect trial court judges.

Florida voters were presented with two ballot questions in November relating to merit selection and retention. One question asked if they wanted to continue electing their circuit judges or switch entirely to a merit selection and retention system. The other question asked the same for county judges.

Currently, mid-term vacancies in the trial courts are filled by merit selection and end of term vacancies by elections, and all trial judges stand for election at the end of their terms, although traditionally most incumbents are unopposed.

The referendums were held pursuant to a 1998 constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by the Constitution Revision Commission and approved by voters. That amendment, in addition to requiring the state to pick up more funding of the trial courts, set a referendum in every circuit and county on switching to pure merit selection and retention.

The Florida Bar, after holding several public hearings and consulting with its Citizens Forum, voted to educate voters about the choice they were making and also to support switching to the appointive system.

"The bottom line is notwithstanding the yeoman effort by the Bar and numerous members of the Bar in making presentations, visiting newspaper editorial boards, passing out pamphlets and other activities, the voters have spoken," said Board of Governors member Alan Bookman, who chaired the committee that oversaw the Bar's campaign.

"The sense in my community [the Pensacola area] was the voter did not want to give up his or her right to vote," he added.

Bookman said the Bar took its pro merit selection position as a way to lessen politics in judicial selections and also find better qualified candidates. The Bar should now turn its attention to addressing problems in judicial elections, he said.

"I think what the Bar should do right now -- since from my standpoint it is a very critical Bar issue -- is to look into the election process, work with the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee and discuss potential campaign reform and get the word out in a better fashion to potential judicial candidates about basically what the existing rules are," he said.

"The Florida Bar distributed information concerning how lawyers evaluated the appellate bench, and all of the justices and 18 district court of appeal judges received highly favorable ratings," Bar President Herman Russomanno said. "The...