As the Nov. 25 deadline approaches for a judicial nominating commission to submit  seven candidates for chief judge of New York, a blunt-talking voice for state Senate Democrats recently suggested that the panel “kind of already know what they’re going to do, and where they’re going to end up.”

Senate deputy majority leader Michael Gianaris, D-Queens, made that assertion as part of a recent panel discussion during which he doubled down on his call for the commission to nominate progressive-minded attorneys with backgrounds in civil rights, immigration, and public defense as the next chief judge of the state court system.