About a month ago, I wrote about the strange proceedings surrounding the appointment of Chuck Poochigian to the Fifth Court of Appeal.  At the time, while his State Bar rating was supposed to be confidential, it was being leaked and reported by the LA legal journal, MetNews, that Poochigian had been given a “not qualified” rating.  Unfortunately, the only confirmation we had on that at the time was the MetNews unnamed sources.

Well, that rating was officially revealed at the former Republican AG nominee’s confirmation hearing this week. The confirming panel is made up of 3 members, the state Attorney General, Jerry Brown, the man who defeated Poochigian in 2006, the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, Ron George, and James Ardaiz, presiding justice of the 5th District Court.  All three voted to confirm despite the “not qualified” rating.  And if you recall George’s tortured logic in the decision to let Prop 8 stand, well, read this:

Jonathan Wolff, chairman of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, … stuck by the commission’s finding that Poochigian’s legislative experience did not give him the needed legal expertise.

George sharply disagreed, pointing to seven state senators since the early 1960s who had moved from the Legislature to the appeals court. George also asked Wolff to update the questionnaire it sends when researching candidates.

The questionnaire, sent to hundreds of legal professionals, now includes a “professional experience” section that references “civil and criminal law trial experience.” It does not ask for legislative experience.

Wolff agreed to change the form, but also noted that the commission did consider Poochigian’s lawmaking tenure. (Fresno Bee)

Poochigian had 12 years experience as an attorney in private practice, doing work most would call tangentially related to the task of being an appeals court judge.  And to George’s point, let’s just say this, if a judge’s role is to make a tremendous stink about ridiculous issues and to thoroughly play a passionate persuasive role in a case, then yes, being a state legislator is great experience.  If you like that whole activist judge thing.

But if a judge is to be a neutral arbiter, being a California legislator has very, very little that would make me confident in the subject’s ability as a judge.  Look, I know many legislators personally, and respect them enormously.  But what I like about them, and what they do day in and day out has remarkably little to do with being a judge. They forcefully advocate, they do press conferences, and occasionally they attend a hearing.  I would give a little credit for the hearings, but considering that many legislators attend as few of them as possible, I’m not sure how much that should go to the qualification question.

No, this was a political favor, there were certaily more qualified legal thinkers to take this position.  Yet, for whatever reason, Arnold felt compelled to give the job to a “not qualified” candidate.  But despite this fact, only one leader came to speak against Poochigian: Equality California’s Geoff Kors.

The only witness speaking against Poochigian was Geoffrey Kors, executive director of Equality California, a gay-rights group. Kors criticized Poochigian’s voting record, which included a 1999 vote against a bill passed into law that prohibits housing and employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

“Sen. Poochigian has never met a gay-rights law he liked,” Kors said.

In his testimony, Poochigian shot back at Kors, accusing him of having his own “bias” and calling his tone “excessive.”

Now, this is the kind of work that Equality California excels at. The insider baseball, props to Kors for getting out in front of the issue.  My only complaint with EQCA on this issue would be the fact that they sent an email to their list AFTER Poochigian was confirmed, rather than before the confirmation when there was something to be done about it from the grassroots.

For a Democrat, the more puzzling issue is the vote of Jerry Brown.  Brown defeated Poochigian, without really running much of a campaign. Yet, Brown voted to confirm Poochigian with only a tough question here and there, including one on a 1999 law that outlawed discrimination in housing based on sexual orientation.  But, being his campaign for governor is now pretty much in full swing, a vote against Poochigian would look something like sour grapes, instead of what it would really be: a vote against an unqualified, biased judge.