Badly.

Free Buffalo News Alert No. 7
http://freebuffalo.org/articles/news...Convention.pdf

What's the Big Secret?

(How State Trial Judges
Are Selected in Western New York)

By James Ostrowski

March 27, 2006

In a few months, the political parties will be out and about gathering signatures for candidates for judicial delegate. Yet, the public knows little about this mysterious process and the parties apparently don’t want you to know. Go to the websites of all major local parties and look for information about this and you will find little or none.

A lawsuit was filed to declare that this system violates the Constitution. A federal court in New York City agreed, but allowed the convention system to continue pending appeal. We can therefore expect at least one more year of the judicial convention system.

Unlike all other elected offices, nominations for the position of State Supreme Court Justice (“state trial judge”), are not determined in a primary election, but in a strange, secretive and archaic system of judicial conventions. Most people have never heard of this system; the parties don’t talk about it much publicly. Even if they knew about it, it is very difficult for citizen-activists to defeat the candidates sponsored by the machine for the position of judicial delegate. Habitually, well-known public officials permit their names to be used to ward off lesser-known challengers. These elected officials then usually do as they are told by the party chairmen. That assures they will receive full support in their next re-election effort.

Each year, there is a mad scramble among lawyers to curry favor with the five party chairmen who traditionally control the conventions. They control the conventions because they choose the delegate candidates in the first place who usually run unopposed and whose names are therefore not even on the ballot. Also, it is usually too expensive and time-consuming for anyone to oppose them. Anyway, candidates seeking the lucrative 14-year term of state trial judge compete with each other for the nomination by contributing large sums to the parties and their various slush funds.

The Buffalo News has had some good investigative articles that expose this shakedown operation.