During last night’s Republican presidential primary debate, Mitt Romney blamed an obscure pre-colonial body – the Massachusetts Governor’s Council – for his failure to appoint more conservative judges when he was governor.
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The council is not known to vet judicial candidates based on party affiliation. At most, and especially more recently, members ask about political donations in hopes of preventing patronage. In addition, the council seldom rejected applicants during Romney’s tenure.
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Romney’s first chief legal council, Daniel B. Winslow, who served from 2002 to 2004, established a non-partisan process for vetting judges through the Judicial Nominating Commission that was touted as a national model, because the primary application was judged blindly. That meant name, race, gender, and party affiliation, were not known during the initial review. Party affiliation was never a consideration, he said.
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Now, the fact that there was little Conservative talent to appoint might have been a factor, but partisanship was not. In addition, since the members serve at the pleasure of the Governor, had they opposed on partisan grounds, he would have been able to remove them.