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DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Will the
gentlemen yield for a question?
THE CHAIRMAN: Will you yield?
DELEGATE MALKUS: Under the same
terms which you offered to yield — one-half
your time, and one-half my time.
THE CHAIRMAN: You may proceed.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: What was
the question you were going to ask me?
(Laughter.)
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Malkus.
DELEGATE MALKUS: He was speak-
ing about corruption in the elections, and
as I read the amendment, it relates only to
the nomination and appointive authority,
and nothing else.
My question was, had he read the sec-
tion and the amendment?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Malkus.
DELEGATE MALKUS: Mr. President,
so many have talked about the evils, and,
as Judge Henderson said, "this mess", and
yet he has been willing to serve in this
mess for more than twenty years. It is
difficult for me to understand how that
could happen.
Mr. Hanson rips our judicial system
apart, but he does not mention any judge's
name. Which judge is bad?
He is a college professor. He does not
have to go before judges. If they are bad,
he can stand upon this floor and say they
are bad and why.
We want to stand up on the firing line
and fire at the opponent, and not do a lot
of bushwhacking.
I went to college with Mr. Hodge Smith.
He looks older than I do. He refers to the
people not having the qualifications to se-
lect a judge. Yet if they had the qualifica-
tions to select the governor, heaven only
knows they have got enough qualifications
to select a judge.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-half
minute.
DELEGATE MALKUS: How much?
THE CHAIRMAN: One-half minute.
DELEGATE MALKUS: I want to make
a few remarks relating to my good friend,
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Judge Sherbow. He found his law practice
much more lucrative, and I am glad for
him. He made a very emotional speech, and
I was accused of that. He said the people
rose up —
THE CHAIRMAN: Your time has ex-
pired, Delegate Malkus.
DELEGATE MALKUS: You will let me
finish my sentence, will you not?
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, indeed.
DELEGATE MALKUS: My comment to
Judge Sherbow is this: How in heaven's
name can the people ever rise up under the
Niles plan?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bamberger.
DELEGATE BAMBERGER: I rise to
speak in opposition to the amendment. The
question is not whether there shall not be
a nominating commission or whether there
shall be. The question is whether we want
to continue the present nominating com-
mission, and the answer to that may ex-
plain why, if it is so, no local bar associa-
tion has endorsed this proposal.
The fact of the matter is now that law-
yers who wish to be judges are nominated
by bar associations. The fact of the matter
is that what this Committee proposes is
that that process shall not be in the hands
of the people.
This amendment would destroy the ap-
plication of nominating commissions in
which the citizenry share a part for the
initial selection of judges. It may be
thought that there are no nominating com-
missions today; that a governor operates
in perfect freedom to select the people who
are the best people to serve on the bench.
That just is not so. There are nominating
commissions, and there are bar associations.
They sometimes do a very respectable job,
and they very often do a poor job. I speak
with knowledge, because I have been on a
bar association commission.
There is politics involved in the selection
of judges. It is not politics in the sense
of all the people in the community. It is
politics within the bar association, and a
bar association which does not represent or
include among its membership all of the
lawyers in any community. What the Com-
mittee proposes to do here is to spread
among the people this initial process of se-
lecting not just people who are qualified
to serve on the bench, but selecting the best
qualified people.
I do not think that we have to make an
argument that there is corruption or in-
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