Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Vote 167-66 to Reject Unification

Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Tuesday, June 8, 1999
Page 1

Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Vote 167-66 to Reject Unification

By ROBERT GREENE, Staff Writer

Unification of Los Angeles County's 25 trial courts has been defeated for a second time by the judges of the Los Angeles Superior Court, who voted 167-66 to reject a merger with the county's municipal courts, Superior Court Presiding Judge Victor Chavez said yesterday.

The 101-vote margin of defeat represents an even broader rejection than last year's vote, the courts' first decision on unification under Senate Constitutional Amendment 4, adopted as Proposition 220.

Los Angeles Superior Court judges defeated unification last summer on a 154-73 vote, a tally that surprised some observers by the greater-than-expected support it suggested for eventual absorption of the municipal courts.

Second Round

But in a second round of month-long voting that concluded June 2, the Superior Court turned down merger even more decisively. Every one of the court's 234 judges turned in their ballots, although one judge submitted a ballot without voting, Chavez said.

Under SCA 4, the judges of each county's trial courts are authorized to merge into a single superior court on majority vote of all of the county's current superior court judges and all of its municipal court judges.

Last July's vote was widely criticized for being too rushed, and the Superior Court's then-presiding judge, Robert Parkin, said before balloting was concluded that he would set a second vote for November or December. But the second vote was delayed another six months as a Superior Court committee, chaired by Judge Gary Klausner, studied a variety of issues associated with enlarging what is already the nation's largest trial court of general jurisdiction.

The Klausner committee identified potential litigation under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, and a possible attempt by the state Legislature to settle a lawsuit by re-dividing the county into several districts, as the biggest open issue in unification.

Salary Parity

Unification remains popular with most municipal court judges, who would ascend to the senior trial court status of their counterparts on the superior court. With that status would come salary parity--a move that would make little difference on each judge's current paycheck, since municipal court judges receive the same pay as superior court judges as long as the county operates under a court coordination plan approved by the Judicial Council.

Municipal court judges cite the savings that SCA 4 backers predicted would come from abolishing the distinction between the upper and lower trial courts.

A majority of judges on the Los Angeles Municipal Court and the smaller so-called outlying municipal courts across the county voted to approve unification last July and were expected to overwhelmingly back it again. No final municipal court vote tally was available yesterday, though, since the Judicial Council has not yet examined and certified the results.

Only in Los Angeles County have trial judges twice rejected unification, and Kern County is the only other jurisdiction to vote not to unify. Of the state's 58 counties, courts in 53 have unified.

Chavez said he expects Los Angeles County judges to continue studying unification, especially with respect to possible effects of the Voting Rights Act. Some Superior Court judges have said eliminating the municipal courts may allow wealthy attorneys running countywide to defeat minority judges who were elected in small municipal districts by minority communities.

Chavez said the Judicial Council has agreed to conduct a demographic study of Los Angeles County to help clarify some of the open issues.