March 8, 2024 -- Since 2006, Gavel to Gavel has tracked state-by-state legislative activity with potential impact on state courts.
New and active legislation includes:
- Security
- Florida House and Senate approve bills to exempt from public records personal identifying & location information of circuit court clerks and their staff;
- Georgia Senate approves bill to limit the accessibility of certain personal information of state and federal judges, justices, and spouses; the bill also limits the display or sharing of certain personal information in certain instances;
- Hawaii House and Senate approve bills to prohibit access to and publication of the personal information of federal and state judges and other judicial staff; and
- Maryland House Judiciary Committee approved Judge Andrew F. Wilkinson Judicial Security Act, named after judge killed in 2023; the bill would among other things allow judges to ask governmental entities or others to not publish personal information on the Internet, social media, or social networks and remove the information from any existing publication.
- Judicial Selection
- Arizona Senate approves plan to reshape judicial selection in the state; constitutional amendment provides that appellate and superior court judges would serve terms of good behavior rather than a set number of years and subjects judges to retention elections only if they are convicted of certain crimes, subject to foreclosure or bankruptcy, etc.;
- Vermont House approves plan to add the Executive Director of Racial Equity to the state's Judicial Nominating Board and provides that the "Board shall consider the extent to which a judicial candidate would contribute to a Judicial branch that has diverse backgrounds and a broad range of lived experience."
- Salary and Compensation
- Georgia House approves plan for a study committee to examine compensation of state and county judges, prosecutors, and public defenders;
- West Virginia House and Senate considering bills to allow the state's supreme court to set uniform pay scales for judicial support staff; currently, salaries for many positions are set by statute; and
- Wyoming legislature approves plan to raise the amount judges must contribute to their retirement program.
- Retirement
- Hawaii House and Senate approve two slightly different constitutional amendments toraise the mandatory judicial retirement age from 70 to 75.
- Other
- Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee approves bill that directs the administrative office of the courts to define and develop a centralized system of case management, document management, electronic case filing, electronic payment methods, data reporting, and any other capability deemed necessary for collection and reporting of all state and local court public case level data; $75 million was allocated in last year's budget for this effort.