By David Migoya | Denver Gazette
The Colorado state Senate on Wednesday rejected the reappointment of the chairwoman to the state panel that handles judicial discipline but narrowly kept its vice-chair.
Needing 18 votes to confirm their reappointments to the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline, chairwoman Mindy Sooter came up two votes shy (19-16 against), while Jim Carpenter was approved by the same margin.
The Senate has a firm 21-14 Democratic majority.
The decision to drop Sooter from the 10-member commission comes days after a Senate committee made the rare choice to refuse confirming either gubernatorial appointee. Unlike proposed legislation that can die in a committee in either house of the General Assembly, appointments by the governor, which require approval from the full Senate, are voted on separately regardless of a committee’s recommendation, though the latter carries weight.
Sooter’s appointment ends on June 30. Gov. Jared Polis can make a new appointment of an attorney member — the discipline commission is made up of two attorneys, four citizens, two county court judges, and two district court judges — that the Senate would take up at the next legislative session.
Carpenter is a citizen member. The governor appoints the non-judicial members, while the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court appoints the four judges.
Sooter’s rejection came after public testimony by the former executive director to the commission who told the Senate’s judiciary committee that she allegedly was part of a broader conspiracy to whitewash years of judicial misconduct tied to a scandal that erupted in 2019.
Sooter and Carpenter strongly denied the allegations during the Senate committee hearing.