one item that wasn't postponed at the state house this week the confirmation of eight more judges to state courts the Senate Judiciary Committee approving the nominees in an effort to tackle New Jersey's High judicial vacancy rate there are 68 currently with another 13 anticipated by the end of the year the chief justice has said the Judiciary could operate with between 25 and 30 vacancies well I asked State Senate President Nick Scutari what it'll take to get there Senate President thanks for giving us a few minutes of your time obviously a very busy day for you all yesterday moving ahead with several confirmations for judgeships where do we stand right now in terms of the vacancy it's been dubbed a crisis well I think the number is artificially different than it has been in the past because we created it we shouldn't ask how many vacancies we have we should ask how many judges we have because if we make an analysis of that we actually have far more judges than we have had in the past because we created 21 additional judgeships so there are a high amount of vacancies but the vacancies aren't aching to numbers it was in the past but it is affecting I mean you've got vicinities that are you know obviously still in the midst of a break we'll call it um you know holding up some civil cases but there's no doubt that there there's openings and we're working diligently to fill those with the governor's office but as I said many times before we can only confirm people that are nominated so as they're nominated then they come to us for confirmation and that means advice and consent that means our role just starts at that point in time officially additionally we give the judges the opportunity to bring retired judges back on recall uh that is something that we give to the judges an opportunity to come back in a retired capacity in order to fill these gaps and that is something that we gave them years ago we allow that to remain How likely is it Senator that you all will have to come back during the summer to wrap up more confirmations we will most likely come back in July to consider additional nominations after we've screened them so uh next Friday is not the end it's just uh the beginning to something degree yeah I mean I guess I'm wondering what's the pace at which you all will need to do this or how frequently do you plan on having to get together throughout the summer to move through more of the nominees well it's really not the fact that we have to come here and meet and confirm them it's the homework that we need to do in advance it's the time that which we need to take in order to consider these nominations the governor's office has as much time as they want and then they're nominated and then they received uh senatorial confirmation after we've done our due diligence so just because they come to us on a Friday doesn't mean they'll be ready on Monday we need to take the same amount of time that they do to ensure that these folks are viable as candidates and Superior Court judges is it time to to take a look at revamping that process then given what we know about as you just mentioned the timing that you're given to vet nominee well I've been encouraging the governor's office to let us know about potential nominees in advance so we can start our vetting process earlier so because there's oftentimes we find out some stuff about nominations that they don't know after our bidding process is completed and we tell them sometimes those nominations have been withdrawn and uh that that starts the process all over so the only way that I think we can improve the process is by uh getting involved in the vetting process earlier but other than that the process works we have one of the finest judiciaries in the country we don't nominate we don't have our judges run for election I don't think anybody can even fathom the fact that a judge would be out campaigning to be to be elected and reelected so our process works it is cumbersome it is onerous it can be long but it's the best process I've seen so far Senate President scutari thank you so much for your time sir my pleasure thanks [Music]