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Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar was a judge of the California Supreme Court from January 2015 to October 2021. Cuéllar resigned on October 31, 2021, to become president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.[1] To learn more about this vacancy, click here.
Cuéllar was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown on July 22, 2014, to replace retired Justice Marvin Baxter, effective January 4, 2015. After his confirmation, Cuéllar was retained by voters on November 4, 2014, for a full term that was set to expire on January 3, 2027.[2] To read more about judicial selection in California, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[3] Cuéllar received a confidence score of Strong Democrat.[4] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Cuéllar received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, his J.D. from Yale Law School, and his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.[2] Prior to taking the bench, Cuéllar served in various capacities in the administration of President Barack Obama (D). Cuéllar worked as Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy (2009-2010) and co-chaired the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission (2011-2013). He also chaired the Presidential Transition Task Force on Immigration (2008-2009).[5] Cuéllar was the senior advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement in the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 1997 to 1999, and he clerked for the Honorable Mary M. Schroeder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2000 to 2001.[2] From 2001 to 2014 Cuéllar was a law professor at Stanford Law School.
Elections
2014
Cuéllar was retained to the Supreme Court with 67.7 percent of the vote on November 4, 2014. [6]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[7]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[8]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Mariano-Florentino
Cuéllar
California
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Strong Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Direct gubernatorial appointment - Key Factors:
- Donated over $2,000 to Democratic candidates
- Held political office as a Democrat
- Was a registered Democrat before 2020
Partisan Profile
Details:
Cuéllar donated $2,150 to Democratic candidates and organizations. He worked for President Barack Obama’s administration on the White House Domestic Policy Council. Cuéllar was registered as a Democrat prior to 2020. He was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) in 2014. At the time of his appointment California was a Democratic trifecta.
State supreme court judicial selection in California
- See also: Judicial selection in California
The seven justices of the California Supreme Court are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments. The state bar's Commission on Judicial Nominee Evaluation—also known as the "Jenny Commission"—is required to perform an extensive investigation on prospective appointees. The commission recommends candidates to the governor after examining their qualifications and fitness, ranking them as exceptionally well qualified, well qualified, qualified, or not qualified. The commission is composed of attorneys and public members.[9][10] Although the governor is not bound to these recommendations, the Commission on Judicial Appointments can approve or veto the appointment by majority vote.[11]
Following confirmation from the Commission on Judicial Appointments, the appointed justice is sworn into office and is subject to voter approval at the next gubernatorial election. The appointed justice must be confirmed by voters via a yes-no retention election. According to the California Constitution, the term for a supreme court justice is 12 years. If retained by the voters, the appointed justice remains in office but their term may depend on their predecessor's term. If the predecessor served part of their term before leaving office, the appointed justice would be retained to serve the remainder of their predecessor's term. This would be for either four or eight years. At the end of that term, the justice again must be confirmed by the voters at a gubernatorial election to begin a new 12-year term.[12][13] If a justice has been appointed to a seat where the predecessor's term would have expired the January 1 immediately after that November gubernatorial election, then the justice would serve a full 12-year term.[14]
Qualifications
To serve as a justice, a candidate must have practiced law for at least 10 years in California or served as a judge in California for at least 10 years.[14]
Chief justice
The court uses the same process described above for selecting its chief justice. The governor, with commission approval, appoints a chief justice for a full 12-year term.[15]
Vacancies
Vacancies are filled by gubernatorial appointment. Appointed judges are required to participate in yes-no retention elections occurring at the time of the next gubernatorial race, which is held every four years.[14]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
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Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ California Globe, "State Supreme Court Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar To Leave Court On October 31st," September 17, 2021
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 California.gov: Office of Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr, "Governor Brown selects Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar for California Supreme Court," July 22, 2014
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ California Courts, "Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar," accessed February 1, 2019
- ↑ California Secretary of State Voter Guide, "Justices of the Supreme Court," accessed August 26, 2014
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ The State Bar of California, "Background," accessed March 27, 2023
- ↑ The State Bar of California, "Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation," accessed March 27, 2023
- ↑ Brennan Center for Justice, "Judicial Selection: An Interactive Map," accessed March 23, 2023
- ↑ California Legislative Information, "Article VI Judicial Sec. 16.," accessed March 27, 2023
- ↑ California Secretary of State, "Justices of the Supreme Court," accessed March 27, 2023
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 California Courts, "Judicial Selection: How California Chooses Its Judges and Justices," accessed March 27, 2023
- ↑ Justia, "Supreme Court of California Decisions," accessed March 27, 2023
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