Democratic support didn’t come easily Wednesday for Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi’s appointment of Robert Bruno, a registered Conservative, to be a judge of the district court in Hempstead.
Party lawmakers delayed the start of the county legislature’s Judiciary Committee for two hours as they caucused behind closed doors. When the committee finally convened and a majority voted to approve Bruno, Chairman Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) and Legis. David Mejias (D-Farmingdale) abstained.
Both Toback and Mejias said then they objected to the rushed nature of the appointment: Suozzi had sent his nomination to the legislature just a day earlier and originally planned to bypass the Judiciary Committee altogether even though its sole mission is to review judicial appointments.
But Toback and Mejias had also argued privately that the party should be nominating its first Hispanic to a Nassau bench, not an pro-life conservative.
“There is not enough diversity on the district court bench or on the bench anywhere in Nassau County,” Toback said Thursday. “This would have been a great....
Celeste Hadrick
...opportunity to right that wrong. I am disappointed that others in the selection process didn’t agree. Dave Mejias and I will do our best to make sure the Democratic party focuses on this issue.”
Mejias said, “The vast majority of the caucus is committed to improving diversity in the courts."
Neither pointed out that Conservative Party Chairman Roger Bogsted, who shepherded Bruno through the approval process, had give his party’s endorsement to the Republican opponents of both Toback and Mejias in last year’s legislative elections.