Closed-door, partisan control of selecting judges

Yesterday's Tennessean covered the debate on judicial selection and included an assertion about the fairness of the existing system. From the article:

Democratic Rep. Henry Fincher, a Cookeville attorney, argued the existing system has promoted the merit-based selection of judges. "To me, we have a system that appoints fair, impartial judges of both parties," he said.

Well, that may be true "to him," but it's not supported by the facts, according to a recent study completed by Brian Fitzgerald of the Vanderbilt University Law School.

Fitzpatrick discovered:

• Between 1995 and 2008, the commission nominated “twice as many appellate judges more affiliated with the Democratic Party (67%) than with the Republican Party.”
• The sharp political tilt in nominations is not matched by Tennessee’s voters. “Although 67% of the Tennessee Plan appellate nominees between 1995 and 2008 were more affiliated with the Democratic Party, during the same time period Democratic candidates for the state House received only 51% of votes and Democratic candidates for Tennessee’s federal House delegation received only 49% of votes.
• Regardless of whether the governor was a Democrat or Republican, the majority of nominees the commission sent were more affiliated with the Democratic Party.

See Fitzpatrick's study here.