Florida Politics by Jim Rosica
October 27, 2017
A proposed constitutional amendment would ensure that future governors could appoint new judges and justices up to their last day in office.
But John Stemberger, the member of the Constitution Revision Commission who filed the amendment Thursday, said he was temporarily withdrawing the proposal to correct a drafting error.
The amendment would make certain that judicial terms end the day before a new governor takes over from a sitting one.
“The proposal should have had an effective date of 2020, well beyond the current legal dilemma that potentially presents itself in January of 2019 when the new Governor is sworn in,” he wrote in an email early Friday.
Attorneys are set to argue a related case against Gov. Rick Scott before the Florida Supreme Court next Wednesday.
“I am not seeking to interfere with the circumstances of legal battles for the judges currently set to retire in 2019, but merely to avoid this miniature constitutional crisis into the future by simply changing the dates so they do not coincide together,” he added.
Progressive groups have challenged Scott’s authority to appoint three new Supreme Court justices on the last day of his term in 2019.
Stemberger, an Orlando attorney and president of the conservative Florida Family Policy Council, aims to “revise the date on which the term of office begins for judicial offices subject to election for retention.”
The amendment aims “to avoid the ambiguity and litigation that may result by having the terms of judicial officers and the Governor end and begin on the same day.”
It would change the start and end dates of judicial terms from “the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January” following the general election, to “the first Monday in January.” [READ MORE]
