Today is the one-year anniversary of Justice Kathryn Werdegar’s announcement that she would be retiring from the Supreme Court. Werdegar actually left the court over six months ago. Governor Jerry Brown has yet to appoint her replacement.
When Justice Werdegar announced her retirement, we noted that her replacement would inherit the remainder of her 12-year term, which expires in 2026. We qualified that by saying the inheritance would occur if the new appointee was “confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments and by the voters in 2018 (assuming the appointment is confirmed before the middle of August 2018).” At the time, that last assumption seemed a bit silly to even have to state, but not anymore.
Might the Governor now wait until after August 16 to make an appointment? One consequence of doing so would be to keep the appointee off this year’s ballot and delay his or her facing the voters until 2022. It is because Justice Leondra Kruger’s 2014 appointment came after August 16 that she is not up for election until this year.
Four months ago, we said that an appointment and confirmation by mid-August to fill the current vacancy “is probable but not necessarily a given.” We’ll stand by that prediction . . . for now.