South Carolina Senate OKs changing how candidates for judges are selected after private meetings

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Senate quickly gave key approval to a bill Thursday that would change the way judges are brought up for election before the General Assembly.
The decision came after hours of hearings where citizens complained about the screening process to select judicial candidates.
The proposal allows the governor to appoint members to the screening panel for judicial candidates for the first time and requires all qualified candidates be sent to the General Assembly for elections up to a maximum of six.
The Senate vote was unanimous. After a routine final approval, the bill goes to the House, whose members have held their own hearings. The General Assembly has eight weeks left in the session to agree on a proposal.
Senators debated the bill on the floor for a few days. But after little progress was made, Republican Senate President Thomas Alexander suggested a group of 11 lawmakers from the 46-member body meet privately to hammer something out, Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said.
Massey brought the bipartisan group into a windowless room in the Senate's office building — at least until one of the senators asked for windows since Columbia was enjoying two of its nicest days so far in 2024. They argued, cajoled, negotiated and went back and forth for about 12 hours over two days.
"Honestly, it was a very good conversation. We had people who were interested, everybody in there was engaged and we had some very differing points of view and some different opinions," Massey said.
The Senate bill doesn't propose wholesale changes. Off the table before negotiations began were things that might require changing the state constitution like taking the election of judges out of the General Assembly's hands.
Instead, the bill adds members to the Judicial Merit Screening Commission and for the first time allows the governor to appointment people to the group.
The commission would now be made up of four members picked by the House Speaker, four members nominated by the Senate, spilt between the Judiciary Committee chairman and the body's president and four members chosen by the governor. His appointments would be three attorneys from various areas of the law and a retired judge.
Legislators who are lawyers can serve on the commission. Some folks calling for bigger changes said that meant judges could be intimidated when those lawmakers come before them because they might could keep them from being re-elected.
To solve that problem, the bill sets a four-year term limit and requires commission members to sit out four years before being put back on the panel. Judges serve six-year terms so they would have a different group of people screening them.
The screening commission can't start eliminating qualified candidates from being sent to the election before a joint session of the General Assembly until there are at least six, which rarely happens, supporters said.
Another big change is a judge has to be elected by a majority of the House members and a majority of the senate. If that doesn't happen on the first ballot, the top three vote-getters go to a second round. If no one wins that vote, lawmakers will take a week to think, then vote again among the three.
The bill also allows someone to run for two judgeships, so a circuit court judge wouldn't have to give up a chance to be reelected to her lower court seat if she wanted to run for the state Supreme Court. Also, screening commission members would have to leave the board if their family members run to be a judge.
Sen. Wes Climer voted for the bill, bit the Republican from Rock Hill said lawmakers who are attorneys need to watch their behavior so they don't give people more reasons to try to change how judges are selected.
"A compromise that nobody loves, but everyone can live with," Climer said.