roanoke.com Real Politics / Preston Bryant

Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

In Virginia, it’s the state legislature that has the constitutional responsibility to name men and women to the judiciary. And when you stop and think about it, few of the delegates’ and senators’ responsibilities should be taken more seriously.

Judges have the power to take away forever our personal liberties and freedoms. They can award our children to one parent or the other, or they can take away our children altogether. They can put us in jail for a short period or prison for a very long time. The can sentence us to death.

So it’s important – extremely important – that legislators very carefully evaluate each person being considered for appointment or reappointment to the bench.

Republicans, who took control of the legislature a few years ago, are determined to put on the bench the most qualified men and women possible. True, they should have a relatively conservative judicial philosophy, respect the law as written by the General Assembly, and have personal and professional ethics that are unassailable. None of which is too much to ask and all of which is in keeping with most Virginians’ thinking.

Fore more than a century, Democrats ruled Virginia government and went out of their way to name only Democrats to the bench. Party affiliation, it seems, was their primary concern. Put another way, for more than a century, if you were a Republican, you needn’t apply for a judgeship. Black robes were tailored only for the Democratic Party faithful.

So imagine the hilarity today when Democrats complain that majority party Republicans – the GOP controls both the House of Delegates and the Senate – are doing more than scratching a judge’s or would-be judge’s surface qualifications. Imagine the head-shaking going on at Democrats’ bellyaching that GOP legislators are actually considering things like philosophy and ethics.

What is not so funny, however, are Democrats’ allegations that Republicans are applying a socially conservative litmus test and are “targeting” sitting judges – especially women and minorities – seeking reappointment.

These specific Democratic allegations spring from the questioning of two incumbent judges (out of a few dozen or more) seeking another term on the bench, one admittedly more celebrated than the other.

First, there was the reappointment hearing before the House and Senate Courts of Justice Committees of Rosemarie P. Annunziata, a member of the Court of Appeals put there when the Democrats were in power. Annunziata, it seems, wrote a dissenting opinion in a child custody case where her appellate court upheld a lower court’s decision to award a father custody after the mother had two lesbian affairs. The father, it seems, had an affair of his own, which was a heterosexual one. Annunziata opined that a double standard was used in the case.

Some on the House committee pointedly questioned Annunziata on her dissent, as is their right, if not their duty. In the end, Annunziata was deemed qualified for reappointment by the Republican-dominated committee on a 16-4 vote, and the full House and Senate soon thereafter officially reappointed her.

The second and more headline-grabbing case involved Newport News circuit court judge Verbena M. Askew, who was seeking a second eight-year term on the bench. Askew, the state’s first black, female circuit court judge who also was appointed when Democrats were in control, had been the accused in a sexual harassment allegation that became a matter central to her reappointment hearings in both the House and Senate judicial committees.

Askew, it’s alleged, sought to strike up an unusually close friendship with a female court employee and also improperly hit on the employee in a hotel bar. The city of Hampton, which was the court worker’s employer, settled the employee’s harassment claim for $64,000. Askew seemingly tried to hide her involvement in the case and then went out of her way to split hairs – à la Clinton – when asked about it. Thus, her honesty was drawn into question, not to mention her culpability in the actual harassment case.

The House and Senate committees questioned Askew and her accuser for some seven hours in an attempt to get at the truth. Askew was defiant. Her accuser was adamant. The committees found Askew’s accuser more credible than the judge herself. Both committees chose not to qualify Askew for reappointment, effectively removing her from the bench.

Democrats have been incredulous in all of this, suggesting that the Republican majorities on the House and Senate judicial review committees are applying litmus tests to appointments. The head House Democrat, Frank Hall of Richmond, suggested that Republicans are “starting down a slippery slope of applying a philosophical litmus test in the selection of judges.”

Oh, please. This from a bunch who for a century has not looked much beyond one’s holding a law degree and being a Democrat (not necessarily in that order) when bestowing judgeships.

Responded Del. Bob McDonnell, the Virginia Beach Republican who chairs the House committee: The Democratic Party “has done a terrible job in reappointing judges. They have just been a rubber stamp. They have turned a term appointment into life tenure. That’s not constitutional.”

McDonnell’s right. Republicans care about much more than one’s party affiliation when appointing judges. Republicans do indeed consider things like judicial philosophy, demeanor, legal scholarship, and ethics.

If these considerations constitute a “litmus test,” then so be it.

Republicans don’t want on the bench judges who “make law” themselves instead of interpreting and applying only that which the legislature has written. Republicans don’t want rude, overbearing judges who intimidate those who come before them. Republicans don’t want anyone but well-qualified, highly skilled judges whose personal and professional ethics are unassailable.

So it’s entirely appropriate for legislators to review sitting judges’ written opinions when considering them for reappointment. Truly, what more objective and defining review could there be of an incumbent judge’s philosophy and competence? And it’s certainly appropriate – necessary, even – for legislators to look into out-of-court sexual harassment settlements involving sitting judges when they’re up for reappointment. Golly, wouldn’t it be a dereliction of duty not to look into such?

Times have changed. It’s no longer the 1950s. If Democrats want to continue operating as thought it’s mid-last century, then that’s their warped prerogative. But Republicans are quite rightly intent on accountability being brought to Virginia’s judiciary.

Virginians who depend on our having a top-notch judiciary that’s beyond ethical reproach deserve nothing less.

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