South Carolina lawmakers finally debate electing judges, but big changes not expected

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — After months of just talking among themselves, lawmakers in South Carolina are finally debating making changes in how the General Assembly chooses judges.

Senators on Thursday took up a bill altering the procedure for picking who sits on the bench. But there are plenty of warnings that wholesale changes aren’t going to happen in the process by which the General Assembly votes on judges from the Supreme Court down to the Circuit Court.

Off the table appear to be changes like having judges get chosen in popular elections or having the governor appoint judges either with or without approval from lawmakers. Those big alterations would require a voter-approved constitutional amendment which starts with a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly.

Instead, the bill in the Senate mostly concentrates on smaller changes with the Judicial Merit Selection Commission, a group of legislators and lawyers who do extensive investigations into judicial candidates, a process that entails examining everything from their finances to their temperament to their knowledge of the law.

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