Squeeze Angela, get Jack, so says the News...

Daily News Editorial
September 18, 2006

In a city brimming with talented lawyers with sterling résumés, the word is that Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez is set this week to deliver a Supreme Court judgeship to an attorney whose chief qualifications include being the brother of Lopez's girlfriend.

The fix, as they say, is in. This gross exercise in cronyism is calendared for Friday at the party's judicial nominating convention, a rigged affair that will blatantly violate the constitutional rights of the borough's voters. The federal courts have so ruled, but Lopez is proceeding smarmily apace, party insiders say.

And even some of them are appalled that Lopez intends to elevate Civil Court Judge Jack Battaglia to the Supreme Court bench while cohabiting with Battaglia's sister Angela. Lopez promised to come through for his gal pal, they say, and that's what's going to count.

Lopez says it's not so, that he has no favorites and that Battaglia is a skilled jurist. Still, if form holds, when the delegates come to order, they will, by acclamation, give the nod to Battaglia over all others, including far more qualified lawyers who asked to be considered on the merits. But maybe form won't hold. Maybe wiser Democrats, such as state party leader Denny Farrell or Rep. Joe Crowley, installed Friday as the Queens chief, can prevail on Lopez to show more respect toward the established rights of the voters.

In New York, the Supreme Court is the general trial court. In theory, its judges are elected. In practice, the bosses have stolen the power to decide who gets on the bench by concocting a convention system over which they exercise complete control. Brooklyn Federal Judge John Gleeson and a panel of appeals judges ruled recently that the conventions were an anti-democratic farce worthy of a banana republic.

Thanks to those welcome decisions, the Brooklyn convention on Friday and similar meetings this week in the other boroughs are likely to be the last hurrah of the bosses. Across the board, they will be rotten affairs. In Queens, for example, the choices will be made by the law partners of the late boss Tom Manton, Long Island residents who have refused to submit their candidates for screening by an independent panel. (Crowley, the new boss, says he's going to require such screening, as does Farrell, who doubles as Manhattan leader.)

And the bosses will violate the constitutional rights of the voters with every judge they make, screened or not. And all those judges will knowingly take their seats in violation of the Constitution. And the worst of the bunch, Lopez and Battaglia, will long stand as symbols of shamelessness - if, that is, they hold to form.