It was only a matter of time before it came to this. One state senator accused another of pressuring yet a third to “sign off” on a pending judicial nomination so a separate renomination of two sitting judges would proceed. At the chief justice’s request, the Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct, working with the Office of Attorney Ethics, investigated the allegations and found no evidence to substantiate any wrongdoing.
The allegations went something like this: An Essex County senator who is a lawyer called the county assignment judge to discuss another senator’s decision to hold up one of the governor’s nominations to the bench. In this conversation, the senator allegedly directed the assignment judge to contact two sitting, untenured judges and to ask them to urge the recalcitrant senator to release the governor’s nominee in exchange for their own renominations for tenured positions. Get it? Political blackmail with the assignment judge delivering the ransom note.
