Nomination to New Jersey Supreme Court riles senate Democrats

    Governor Chris Christie’s nomination of Anne Patterson to replace John Wallace on the New Jersey Supreme Court may not get very far.

    Governor Chris Christie’s nomination of Anne Patterson to replace John Wallace on the New Jersey Supreme Court may not get very far.

    Christie wants to change the direction of the court, but several prominent senate Democrats say there won’t even be a hearing on the nomination.

    Rutgers law professor Bob Williams says it’s hard to tell how this will play out.

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    “It may be that we’re going to see here the kind of political partisan tit-for-tat that we see in Washington over the nomination of United States Supreme Court Justices,” says Williams, “and that’s something we have not seen in this state since our new constitutional was adopted in 1947.”

    Williams says the decision not to give Wallace tenure may influence highly qualified candidates in the future to think twice about whether to give up a high prestige job if they’re going to have their decisions evaluated by politicians after seven years on the high court.

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