The Colorado Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender (GLBT) Bar Association is a voluntary professional association of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender attorneys, judges, paralegals and law students and their allies. What grew out of the GLBT community’s forceful reaction to the passage of Amendment Two in 1992 has now become an important voice and presence for GLBT lawyers throughout Colorado.
While the GLBT Bar’s daily function is to serve as a networking and referral source for Colorado GLBT lawyers, it is also the GLBT community’s outreach engine to the larger legal community and the GLBT conscience with the full Colorado bar. Throughout the years, the GLBT Bar and its members have taken important public positions on topics important to the GLBT community and helped to ensure greater inclusion of GLBT lawyers in all areas of practice. In 2007, the GLBT Bar expanded its community outreach role to weigh in on state judicial appointments.
Colorado follows a “merit selection” process for judicial appointments. Except for Denver County judges, each state judge, at every level, is appointed by the governor from a list of three finalists selected by a non-partisan commission. Denver County judges are appointed by the mayor. When Democratic Governor Bill Ritter took office in 2007, his office reached out to Colorado’s diverse bar associations, including the Colorado GLBT Bar, seeking regular, ongoing input on judicial appointments. This marked the first time any governor had sought the GLBT Bar’s advice on judicial nominees. In response to Governor Ritter’s invitation, the GLBT Bar formed a Judicial Endorsements Committee to evaluate nominees and provide written endorsements to the governor.
In the spring of 2007, the Judicial Endorsements Committee created a protocol for the endorsements process. As part of this protocol, once the three finalists for any vacancy are announced, we send letters out to the candidates explaining who we are, what we like to see in judges and asking the candidates to contact us if they would like to seek our endorsement. Under the endorsement process, the Committee evaluates the information provided in the nominees’ applications, confers with their references within the GLBT community, considers input from our membership, and usually holds a short teleconference with each individual nominee. Nominees are evaluated for their qualifications to be a judge. They are also evaluated on their familiarity with, and sensitivity to, legal issues that affect the GLBT community.
The Committee completes the evaluation process for all nominees to the appellate courts in Colorado, as well as county and district courts in the Denver metro area. As time and resources permit, the Committee considers nominees from other judicial districts if the nominees initiate contact with the Committee.
By the end of 2008 the Committee had offered endorsements for 25 judicial vacancies. Eleven of the GLBT Bar Association’s recommendations have been appointed by Governor Bill Ritter or Mayor John Hickenlooper. The nominees who have gone through this process have praised the Committee’s work, noting how fair, thoughtful and informative they found the process to be. Some have even remarked how it was helpful to understand the GLBT legal issues that may come before them. The Committee has also heard from the Governor’s Office how helpful our input is to the governor.
In early 2009, the GLBT Bar voted to bring Colorado federal appointments under its endorsements process. Recently, Colorado’s senatorial delegation has adopted a selection process for federal judgeship and U.S. Attorney vacancies that is similar to Colorado’s judicial selection process – that is, they select a list of three finalists for the president’s appointment consideration.
We made our first foray into the federal endorsements arena for Colorado’s United States Attorney vacancy (there is only one U.S. Attorney in Colorado, which has only one federal judicial district). For this, we followed the same process we employ for state judge vacancies. Once the three finalists’ names were put forward by Colorado’s two U.S. Senators – (then) Senator Ken Salazar and Mark Udall – we sent letters out and conducted phone interviews. The finalists were: Bill Thiebaut, Jr., the District Attorney in Pueblo; Stephanie Villafuerte, Deputy Chief of Staff for Governor Ritter; and John Walsh, former Assistant U.S. Attorney and commercial litigator. All three candidates were superb, but the Bar gave its endorsement to Stephanie Villafuerte. We sent the endorsement letter to Senator Udall’s office last month. As of this posting, President Obama has not made the U.S. Attorney appointment.
The GLBT Bar will also reach out to and consider the finalists for Colorado’s two federal judgeship vacancies. Those names are expected to be made public soon.
For additional information about the Colorado GLBT Bar or about the GLBT Bar’s judicial endorsements process, please visit our website, www.coloradoglbtbar.org.