Proposed Amendments to State Bar Rule 7.61 Regarding Voting Procedures of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation

The State Bar proposes amending Rule 7.61 of Title 7, Chapter 3, Article 5 of State Bar Rules to exclude abstentions from the count when calculating the total votes that a judicial candidate receives.

Deadline: November 12, 2021

Direct comments to

Comments should be submitted using the online Public Comment Form. The online form allows you to input your comments directly and can also be used to upload your comment letter and/or other attachments.

Background

State Bar Rules governing the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) voting procedures require that the JNE Commission assign one of four possible ratings to all candidates—not qualified, qualified, well qualified, or exceptionally well qualified. These ratings are determined by a vote of members of the JNE Commission. State Bar Rules also specify that the calculation of ratings include the abstentions in the total of votes cast.

Discussion/proposal

The inclusion of abstentions in vote totals makes it possible for a candidate to fail to meet the criteria established in the rules for assigning a rating. A candidate with even a single abstention counted in the total could fail to receive a majority of not qualified votes—the requirement for rating a candidate as not qualified—yet still fail to receive at least half of the votes of qualified—the requirement for rating a candidate as qualified.

This amendment to State Bar Rule 7.61 would eliminate abstentions in the counting of vote totals so that a rating may be assigned to all candidates.

Any fiscal/personnel impact

None

Background material