March 1, 2024 -- Since 2006, Gavel to Gavel has tracked state-by-state legislative activity with potential impact on state courts.
New and active legislation includes:
- Judicial Security
- Bills advance in 5 states (Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, and Wisconsin) that would establish or expand privacy protections for judicial officers and their families;
- New York bills would reclassify court officers and court clerks as police officers; and
- Wyoming legislature sends the governor a bill expanding the existing crime of influencing, intimidating, or impeding jurors or witnesses to include judges.
- Judicial Selection
- Oklahoma Senate Rules Committee approves plan to end merit selection for appellate judges and provide that the governor is to nominate and the senate to confirm all judges subject to retention elections; and
- South Carolina Senate approves plan to remove all existing members of the Judicial Merit Selection Commission and replace with 5 members appointed by the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Commission on Prosecutions Coordination, the Commission on Indigent Defense, and the South Carolina’s Chief Justice.
- Structure Changes
- Georgia House approves plan to create a statewide Tax Court within the judiciary; would become state's 8th trial court type (others are Superior, State, Juvenile, Probate, Magistrate, Municipal, and State-wide Business).
- Other
- Utah House and Senate approve amendment to state's Rules of Civil Procedure to provide that in a civil action pending in a court in a county with seven or more district court judges, each side is entitled to one change of judge as a matter of right;
- Virginia Senate approves a plan to require that all clerk's offices have a sign that judicial complaint forms are available and requires the clerks to provide paper copies; and
- Washington bill requiring counties and cities to provide the administrative office of the courts with notice of court reorganizations on the way to the governor's desk