Should Utah governor be able to pick chief justice?

SALT LAKE CITY — A state Senate leader wants the governor to appoint the chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court — a move critics say could inject partisan politics into court actions.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Jenkins, R-Plain City, says he's been examining and thinking about the issue for some time, and he believes now it's proper to run the change. He denies that giving the governor this power would inject politics into high court cases.

Jenkins' bill, SB109, doesn't change how justices are put on the court in the first place. That would still be done through the Judicial Nominating Commission sending up names to the governor, who nominates one candidate to the state Senate, which confirms that person.

Since statehood, Chief Justice Christine Durham said in a statement on SB109, the justices of the Supreme Court have elected from among their own members a chief justice and an associate chief justice. It's worked well and should not be changed, she said.

And it's a power that Gov. Gary Herbert did not seek, said his spokeswoman, Angie Welling.

"We are currently evaluating the legislation, and are not, at this time, prepared to take a position on the bill," Welling said.

Under Jenkins' bill, the governor would, from among the five justices, pick a chief justice, who would serve a four-year term and could be reappointed by the governor to the top court post.

The chief justice would pick the associate chief justice, who could only serve two, two-year terms in that post.

"When you have a small group of people making this choice" — there are only five justices — "it can cause friction" among the justices, Jenkins said. And since other governors have this appointment power (as does the U.S. president concerning U.S. Supreme Court chief justices), "it's proper that we do this."

The governor already nominates Utah's justices, so there would be no greater political pressure than now, he added.

But Rep. Kay McIff, R-Richfield, a retired state judge, disagrees. A governor picking a chief justice "increases the opportunity for political considerations and partisan politics to be interjected" into a pending case before the court, he says, because the chief justice would owe that top administrative post to the governor, who could deny it to him/her when the four-year term expires.