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Article published Sep 24, 2004
As
judicial filing closes, hopes for diversity slip
Associated Press
COLUMBIA -- As a filing deadline passed
for those wanting to become judges, the leading proponent of putting more blacks
and women on the bench said he has little hope the Legislature will make that
happen next year.Thirty percent of South Carolina's residents are black, but its
top courts are among the nation's least diverse.Twenty-three people, including
three blacks and seven women, met Wednesday's deadline for seven open judgeships
on the Court of Appeals, Administrative Law Court, circuit, master-in-equity and
family court.The black and women candidates are running in two of the three
contested races, according to the state Judicial Merit Selection Commission. For
example, five women, one of whom is black, are running for a family court seat
in Columbia.A bill Rep. Leon Howard, D-Columbia, pushed last year would have
allowed legislators to consider more black candidates in elections. But that
bill died in June when the Legislature adjourned.When the elections this year
elected no black judges, black lawmakers were angered and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
threatened a lawsuit.Without that change, Howard fears a state judicial
screening committee that will nominate three judges for each seat during the
next few months will send few, if any, blacks or women to the Legislature for
consideration in February elections.A study by The State newspaper in May showed
two-thirds of black candidates in contested races since 1998 have been rejected
by the screening committee."That's why it was critical we should have made some
changes" before the session ended, said Howard, who is black.State Supreme Court
Chief Justice Jean Toal has asked lawmakers to put more non-legislators on the
screening panel in an effort to elect more women and minority judges. The law
requires six of the commissioners to be legislators.The commission now is made
up of eight white men, one black man and one black woman.