Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts will, for the second time, appoint his second judge to the Nebraska Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, Governor Ricketts appointed Stephanie Stacey, a former Lancaster County District Judge, to the Nebraska Supreme Court replacing the retiring Supreme Court Judge Kenneth Stephan. In early 2016, the Nebraska governor will have to choose the replacement for Judge Michael McCormack who has served as Supreme Court Judge for 18 years.
The Starherald.com noted that, though there is no mandatory retirement age for the Nebraska Supreme Court, the Republican governor may well be able to appoint more Supreme Court judges since four members of the court are age 68 or older. And if Ricketts wins a second term, there is a distinct possibility that he will have a chance to appoint majority of the seven seat.
Ricketts is, thus, in a position reshape the ideological makeup of Nebraska Supreme Court closer to his Conservative beliefs. Creighton University law professor Michael Fenner, in an interview with Joe Duggan of the Omaha World-Herald said that this would influence Supreme Court decisions on what is constitutional and what is not, which are covered by First Amendment rights, what constitutes due process, what the limitations are on the right to keep and bear arms, and what criminal convictions are upheld or reversed.
Nevertheless, efforts in the past to influence the Court by appointing judges with similar ideological bent have not always been successful. Legal pundits have observed that quite a few US presidents had been disappointed by their US Supreme Court appointees. As noted by reporter Robert Barnes of the Washington Post, US Supreme Court Justices have a tendency to make decisions favorable to the President who appointed them but would tend to show independence later even if subsequent Presidents are of the same ideological bent as the President who appointed them.
Moreover, the interview reports that Nebraska has a merit system in place since 1962 that requires candidates to the Supreme Court to undergo screening by a nine-member nominating commission. Political affiliation must be balanced and members must forward at least three finalists to the governor.
Governor Ricketts said that he would not appoint activist judges. "I'm looking for judges who understand the role of the judiciary in applying the law, not trying to create the law," he states in his interview with the Omaha World-Herald.
