EDITORIAL

Time to abolish an uncourteous Senate practice.

   Now that state Sen. Nia Gill has finally "signed off" on Gov. Jon Corzine’s nomination of Attorney General Stuart Rabner to be the next chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, everybody in Trenton can shake hands, smile and pretend nothing untoward happened in the couple of weeks leading up to this event.
   And years from now, when people look back on Chief Justice Rabner’s long and presumably distinguished career on the bench, the little-known Democratic senator who held up his nomination — for no apparent reason — won’t even merit a footnote of mention.
   That’s too bad, because the unwritten rule Sen. Gill invoked to delay Mr. Rabner’s nomination — a practice inappropriately termed "senatorial courtesy" — deserves a lot of public attention. The more attention it gets, the likelier it is that this disgraceful tradition will finally come to an end.
   Senatorial courtesy, for the uninitiated, is a custom that allows any senator who represents any part of a county in which any gubernatorial nominee for any appointed position happens to live to summarily block that nomination for as long as he or she likes for any reason. Or for no reason at all. The senator doesn’t even have to offer an explanation for his or her action, whether its effect is to hold up a nominee to some obscure state advisory board or to New Jersey’s highest court.
   Here’s how convoluted senatorial courtesy is. Sen. Gill represents the 34th Legislative District, which includes Clifton, East Orange, Glen Ridge, Montclair and West Paterson. Mr. Rabner lives in Caldwell, which is located in the 27th Legislative District, represented by Senate President Richard Codey. Sen. Codey enthusiastically endorsed Mr. Rabner’s nomination. Yet Sen. Gill, who lives seven districts away, was able to block it because Caldwell is in Essex County, and so are three of the towns she represents. The fact that she does not represent Caldwell has no bearing on her ability to invoke senatorial courtesy.
   Nor does the fact that she never so much as hinted at, much less explained, the reason she blocked the nomination. Some of her colleagues, quoted anonymously, suggested it may have had to do with race (Ms. Gill is black, Mr. Rabner white), or gender, or both. Other sources indicated the senator may have been miffed that the governor didn’t consult her before submitting Mr. Rabner’s name for confirmation. And still others hinted at more nefarious motives; perhaps she was holding up the nomination to extract some quid pro quo from the Corzine administration regarding future judicial appointments, or appointments in general, or something totally unrelated.
   None of this seems to matter now. Sen. Gill relented (insisting that she never actually invoked senatorial courtesy, but was merely exercising "due diligence"), the Rabner nomination moved forward and, in its aftermath, all has apparently been forgiven and forgotten in Trenton.
   But elsewhere in New Jersey, where there should be little patience for mindless traditions practiced in the state capitol, we hope citizens will neither forgive nor forget. Regardless of whether one applauds or condemns Gov. Corzine’s nomination of Attorney General Rabner to be chief justice, there is simply no place in a democratic society for what amounts to a legislative blackball — the ability of a single lawmaker, with no explanation, to exercise veto power over a gubernatorial nomination or, worse, to use the threat of this power to make some kind of backroom deal.
   There is nothing at all courteous about senatorial courtesy. It should have been abolished long ago. Maybe this latest episode, demonstrating how abusive and undemocratic the practice really is, will finally inspire a movement to secure its long-overdue passage into the history books.