24-809 Judicial nominating commission; chairperson; manner of voting; vacancies; procedure.
24-809. Judicial nominating commission; chairperson; manner of voting; vacancies; procedure.The judge of the Supreme Court on each judicial nominating commission shall be the chairperson of the commission and shall preside at all of its meetings. He or she shall not be entitled to vote. In selecting or rejecting judicial nominees, the members of the commission shall vote by oral roll call vote. When it is determined that a judicial vacancy exists in a particular district, the chairperson of the commission shall determine whether there will be eight qualified members of the appropriate judicial nominating commission, including alternate members. If it is determined that there will not be eight members present and capable of voting at the time the commission meets to vote, the chairperson of the commission shall inform the Governor of the number of citizen members which need to be appointed and shall inform the Executive Director of the Nebraska State Bar Association of the number of lawyer members which need to be elected. The Governor shall promptly make such number of citizen appointments as are necessary. The Executive Council of the Nebraska State Bar Association shall nominate at least one lawyer candidate for each vacancy on the nominating commission which needs to be filled. If the Executive Council is unable, with reasonable effort, to obtain a sufficient number of candidates for each vacancy, it may nominate candidates who do not reside in the judicial district or area served by such nominating commission. The nominations shall be sent to the Clerk of the Supreme Court, and the lawyer vacancies shall be filled by election as provided in section 24-806. There shall be eight qualified commission members present and capable of voting at the time the vote is taken. In the event that a nominating commission public hearing is postponed due to the lack of a full complement of commission members entitled to vote, the time limits specified in subsection (4) of section 24-810 shall be extended for an additional thirty days for each such postponement. The chairperson of the commission shall cause appropriate notice of the time and place of the newly scheduled judicial nominating commission public hearing to be published as provided in subsection (1) of section 24-810. The postponement of a commission hearing shall not extend the initial application filing deadline of twenty-one days prior to the initial public hearing. Each candidate shall receive five votes from the voting members of the nominating commission to have his or her name submitted to the Governor. SourceLaws 1963, c. 124, § 9, p. 475; Laws 1973, LB 110, § 5; Laws 1991, LB 251, § 5; Laws 1995, LB 303, § 6; Laws 2007, LB290, § 1.