Joshua Groban judge is on the San Francisco ballot on Election Day, and voters are being asked whether he should be elected to the office for the term provided by law. The question is part of a rare direct vote on a California Supreme Court justice, even as the state has moved so far away from judicial elections that the practice is almost nonexistent.
The ballot in San Francisco names Joshua Groban and Kelli Evans, along with 13 appellate court justices. Voters are being asked whether each justice should be elected to the office for the term provided by law, a formula that looks simple on the page but carries real weight for who keeps a seat without another round of appointment and review.
San Francisco ballot, thin records
Over 250 pages in the city pamphlet and 175 pages in the state version leave just 1 page of information about judicial nominations. Half of that page is biographical material on the two Supreme Court appointees, which means the public is asked to decide on a justice with very limited practical guidance in the official voter materials.
The California Constitution says Supreme Court justices, justices of the courts of appeal, and superior court judges shall be elected. That command dates to 1849, but the right to vote for judges has been eroded so much over the last century that direct judicial choice now survives mostly in this one retention-style vote.
Governor Newsom's judicial pipeline
More than 1,750 Superior Court judges preside over civil and criminal trials across California's 58 counties, yet unless an attorney challenges a sitting judge for another term, the judge is deemed elected and never reaches the voters. San Francisco saw a rare Superior Court election earlier this year because one judge retired too late for Governor Newsom to appoint a replacement, a reminder that the public vote now appears only in narrow openings.
By January, Governor Newsom will have appointed over 800 judges or justices to California courts. The California Judicial Council recommended 159 additional judgeships last week to address statewide workloads and backlogs, reinforcing how much of the system now turns on appointment rather than election.
What voters can still do
If the next governor appoints judges at the same pace as Governor Newsom, the vote on or before Nov. 3 will likely be the last and only voice in their selection and retention. Neither Xavier Becerra nor Steve Hilton discusses how he will appoint judges on his website, so voters looking for a future appointment philosophy will not find much to work with there.
The practical answer for San Francisco voters is straightforward: read the judicial page carefully, then treat the Groban question as a retention decision with limited paperwork behind it. The better standard is not personality, but whether voters are comfortable giving another term to a justice whose public file in the pamphlet offers little beyond the fact that he is already on the bench.
