Few blacks appointed to judgeships by FL Gov. Rick Scott

[Redfairen]

Gov. Rick Scott is on pace to appoint fewer African-Americans to judgeships in Florida than either of his two predecessors, Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush. In his two years as governor, Scott has appointed 91 judges. Six are black, including the reappointments of three judges who handle only cases involving benefits to injured workers.

Scott has appointed two African-Americans to the circuit court bench, both in Miami-Dade County, and has appointed a black county judge in Jacksonville.

.......

At a roundtable meeting with black legislators, Scott defended his appointments in the face of criticism that his record is “appalling.”

“There’s a sentiment in the black legal community that we need not apply because we don’t think like you,” Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, told the governor.

“If an applicant — I don’t care who they are — believes in judicial activism, I’m not going to appoint them,” Scott told the black legislators’ group.


Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/20/3189599/gov-rick-scott-has-appointed-few.html#storylink=cpy

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. And that is why ...

EVERY election is important!

[Igel]

2. Try this.

If South Asians were 95% (R), would there be a big push to appoint South Asians to the judiciary, knowing that most were conservative, regardless of their percentage makeup in the legal community?

No. We want a judiciary that's ideologically unbalanced. So do they. That's more important. To both sides. If that has consequences, so be it.

Old white men tend to be more conservative. So we hear (and in the past heard more often) polemic against appointing more old white men to the judiciary. It wasn't anti-white racism or ageism. It was ideology and recognizing the correlation between judicial philosophy, age, and sex. It's not skin color that matters; it's the effect skin color has on judicial philosophy and general outlook on things. (Otherwise we'd be saying that melanin content and the presence of epicanthic folds connote some sort of racial superiority. Galton and the KKK would be proud to find their racist beliefs confirmed by modern biology.)

What's ironic is that if Scott did find a conservative black to appoint the appointee would be decried for his conservativism and lack of authenticity. We're still arguing ideology, it's just that many use race for leverage.