After a long hiatus with no judicial confirmations, the Senate Judiciary Committee met today and approved 11 nominees for judgeships on the New Jersey Superior Court, including some nominees who have been waiting in limbo for nearly a year.
The 11 nominees – Wendy Reek, Sherwin Campbell, Kimberly Casten, Ana Esteves, Leonardo Hernandez, Roslyn Holmes Grant, Kevin Barry, John Bruder, Anthony Parenti, Raquel Vallejo, and Kelly Waters – were all cleared unanimously. The full Senate will meet for a voting session next Monday, meaning they could be confirmed in just a few days.
Among the nominees, Holmes Grant is particularly notable; currently a municipal court judge in Newark, she’s also the wife of Glenn Grant, the director of the Administrative Office of the Courts. By taking a spot in the state judiciary, Holmes Grant will be indirectly serving under the authority of her own husband.
Once the 11 nominees approved today are confirmed, the number of judicial vacancies will be reduced from 67 to 56, according to a tally by the New Jersey Monitor. That’s down from the high of 75 vacancies that was reached in 2022, but it’s still enough to affect the court system’s ability to efficiently adjudicate cases; Grant and Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner have both implored the governor and legislature to bring the vacancy total down to a more manageable level.
Another 15 Superior Court nominees have been named but haven’t yet come up for a hearing, while the remaining 41 open Superior Court seats have no announced nominee.
The end of the lame duck session in early January represents a hard deadline for the 15 pending nominees; if they aren’t confirmed by then, they’ll have to be renominated by Gov. Phil Murphy next session and go through the process all over again. Once the new legislature is in, there will also be shifts in which senators hold courtesy powers over each nomination, though most of the 15 nominees are not from parts of the state where that’s likely to make much difference.
