Gov. Hochul’s nomination of former prosecutor Hector LaSalle to be the subsequent chief judge of Recent York’s Court of Appeals was hanging by a thread Thursday as more state Senate Democrats pledged to reject the pick.
Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris became the highest-ranking Democrat to date to denounce LaSalle after 10 others announced in recent days they might vote to make him the primary chief judge nominee ever to be spurned by legislators.
“I feel Justice LaSalle represents a continuation of a establishment that sullied the Court’s repute and ruled inconsistently with NYers values,” Gianaris (D-Queens) said in a statement on Twitter. “I’ll vote ‘no’ should the nomination be delivered to the Senate floor.”
Hochul will now need no less than one Republican vote to get LaSalle confirmed within the 63-seat state Senate — if his nomination makes it out of committee. Despite the criticism, she told the Post that she stands by her decision to choose the person who would develop into the court’s first non-white chief justice in a press release Thursday.
“Judge LaSalle is a highly qualified, experienced, and revered jurist, and his historic nomination deserves a full hearing and confirmation process,” she said. “I expect that the Senate will fulfill their constitutional duties and interact in a sturdy, fair process. I do know that Judge LaSalle is one of the best candidate for the job, and I feel that when Senators hear from him directly, they are going to agree.”
But State Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) said that with Gianaris coming out against LaSalle, the nomination looked as if it would have long odds of success.
“It seems to me that is an especially difficult nomination to maneuver forward,” Hoylman told The Post.
Gianaris further alleged that the centrist LaSalle wouldn’t “ensure a change from the harmful tenure of Janet DiFiore and her three followers still serving on the Court of Appeals.”
DiFiore, who left the bench in August, is a former Republican prosecutor who led the best court in issuing quite a few conservative-leaning decisions by a 4-3 majority — contrary to Recent York’s repute as a progressive state.
“Unfortunately, there appears to be an incredible possibility that Justice LaSalle would represent a continuation of the unacceptable establishment that has sullied the repute of our state’s highest court and ruled inconsistently with the values held dear by Recent Yorkers,” claimed Gianaris, who also played a key role in scuttling plans in 2019 to construct a satellite Amazon campus in Queens.
Criticism from the left over the LaSalle pick has grown since last week, when lawmakers like state Sen. Rachel May (D-Syracuse) alleged his prior work as a lead gang prosecutor and deputy bureau chief of the special investigations bureau within the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office would drawback criminal justice reformers for years.
“After a careful review of the nominee, I’m forced to conclude he could be regressive on issues impacting women’s rights, labor issues, and climate change. I can be a ‘no’ on Judge LaSalle,” May tweeted Friday morning.
Also of concern to liberals were a few of LaSalle’s previous rulings while serving within the Second Department of the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division in Brooklyn.
One such ruling, from 2017, involved pregnancy crisis centers then-state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman alleged were practicing medicine illegally while urging women to avoid abortions, “making them appear like medical offices, requesting the medical histories of its clients, performing pregnancy tests and sonograms, estimating gestational age, and evaluating fetal health,” in line with court records.
LaSalle was a part of the four-judge panel that unanimously blocked the then-AG from issuing subpoenas for center records, with Associate Justice Jeffrey Cohen writing that Schneiderman’s requests infringed on the First Amendment rights of the nonprofit centers without being “sufficiently tailored to serve the compelling investigative purpose for which it was issued.”
Labor leaders have also pointed to LaSalle’s decision in a 2015 case allowing Cablevision to sue union organizers who criticized its Hurricane Sandy response.
“The law must have prevented the suit,” a gaggle of nearly 50 Recent York legal scholars wrote in a letter to Hochul opposing LaSalle. “In reality, the First [Judicial] Department heard a case involving an analogous issue but different parties, and threw it out, relying partly on Recent York’s long-standing labor law.”
