Poritz deserves reappointment as chief justice

PACKET EDITORIAL, May 2

By: Packet Editorial
   Tempting though it may have been for Gov. James E. McGreevey, a Democrat, to break with tradition and choose someone from his own political party to be chief justice of the state Supreme Court, the governor did the right thing in reappointing Republican Deborah Poritz.
   Chief Justice Poritz, who served as chief counsel to Republican Gov. Tom Kean and later as attorney general in the administration of Republican Gov. Christie Whitman, has led the state’s highest court through a thicket of politically charged issues with a keen legal mind, an independent spirit and a strong sense of public purpose. She has proven a worthy successor to the extraordinary chief justices who preceded her — Arthur T. Vanderbilt, Joseph Weintraub, Richard J. Hughes and Robert N. Wilentz — and maintained the New Jersey judiciary’s nationwide reputation for excellence.
   The decision to reappoint Chief Justice Poritz, a Princeton Township resident, was made all the more difficult for Gov. McGreevey by his own unfortunate utterances during the 2001 campaign. Charging, in effect, that former Gov. Whitman had filled the court with appointees known more for their political activism than their legal acumen, candidate McGreevey vowed to appoint justices based purely on merit. In our view, his reappointment of Chief Justice Poritz actually makes good on this vow, though we doubt it was what he had in mind when he was out there demagoguing the issue on the campaign trail.
   We also suspect history played an important role in the governor’s decision. It could not have escaped his notice that former Gov. Hughes, a Democrat, was appointed chief justice by Gov. William T. Cahill, a Republican. Or that Chief Justice Wilentz, a prominent Democrat appointed to his initial seven-year term by Democratic Gov. Brendan Byrne, was reappointed by Republican Gov. Kean, much to the dismay (rising, in some cases, to apoplectic outrage) of GOP legislators.
   Ironically, opposition to Chief Justice Poritz’s reappointment appears to be coming from that same side of the legislative aisle. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision, written by the chief justice, that allowed former Sen. Frank Lautenberg to replace then-Sen. Robert Torricelli on the ballot in last fall’s U.S. Senate race did not sit well with many Republican lawmakers. Nor did Chief Justice Poritz’s appointment of Princeton University professor Larry Bartels as the tie-breaker in the legislative redistricting standoff following the 2000 Census endear her to GOP loyalists. (He sided with the Democrats.)
   So if there’s going to be a fight in the Senate over Chief Justice Poritz’s reappointment, it’s evidently going to come from members of her own party, not Gov. McGreevey’s. And their principal complaint seems to be not that the court is too partisan but that the chief justice isn’t partisan enough. That, alone, should convince any reasonable observer that she is eminently qualified to remain perched atop the state’s judicial branch.
   Over the years, the New Jersey Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted its independence from both the executive and legislative branches — as it should. Its interpretation of the "thorough and efficient" clause of the state constitution has led to landmark reforms in financing public education that the other branches of government were too timid to undertake on their own. Its leadership in the area of affordable housing has broken down barriers that the other branches and levels of government not only refused to dismantle but, in many cases, actually erected — barriers that deprived citizens of their constitutional right to live in communities of their own choosing.
   It is in this same tradition of independence that Chief Justice Poritz has guided the deliberations of New Jersey’s highest court for the past seven years. She richly deserves the vote of confidence Gov. McGreevey has given her, along with swift confirmation by the state Senate.