ALBANY- State Senator James Skoufis (D, Cornwall) cast the deciding vote to oppose Governor Hochul’s nomination of Hector LaSalle for chief justice of the state’s highest court earlier this month. The nomination failed by a single vote margin, 10 to 9.
As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Skoufis heard several hours of testimony from LaSalle regarding his past rulings, including a particularly controversial decision the Senator took issue with that’s widely viewed as anti-labor.
“Regardless of what party the Governor belongs to, vetting a nominee to be our state’s top jurist is one of the most important and most solemn tasks the Judiciary Committee undertakes,” said Skoufis. “Given his extensive history of concerning rulings from the bench, I couldn’t in good conscience greenlight Judge LaSalle’s nomination. New Yorkers deserve not only an immensely qualified jurist to lead our top court; we owe them a nominee who has consistently risen to the challenge of defending the many hard-fought protections our state has secured. That person isn’t Judge LaSalle.”
With the Judiciary Committee blocking his nomination from moving to the Senate floor for a vote, LaSalle’s candidacy is effectively dead. The state legislature has never before rejected a Governor’s chief justice nominee.
