A group including former Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher and Indiana NAACP chief Barbara Bolling say they’re lobbying Sen. Evan Bayh to recommend more minorities for President Obama to name to federal court openings in the state.
Members of the newly formed Metropolitan Committee for Judicial Justice said Obama has an opportunity to address a lack of diversity through his appointments to the two U.S. attorney jobs in Indiana and vacant judgeships in South Bend and Indianapolis.
U.S. Judge Rudy Lozano was the first Latino ever appointed to the federal bench in Indiana and the only minority appointee. Judge Theresa Springman in South Bend and Judge Sarah Evans Barker in Indianapolis are the only two women to serve on the federal bench in Indiana.
“They may as well put a sign outside the court house door that says ‘For White Males Only,'” Hatcher said at a news conference Friday.
Tradition dictates that Bayh, as the senior Democratic official in Indiana, will recommend names to Obama for all federal appointments in the state. Bayh already recommended David Hamilton, a former aide who is white, for a seat on the federal appeals court based in Chicago.
Hatcher said he and others have assembled a list of 15 qualified minority candidates he intends to pass along to Bayh.
Bolling, president of the Indiana chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a Gary attorney, listed several minority candidates including Lake County judges Lorenzo Arredondo and Clarence Murray as qualified for judgeships.
State Sen. Lonnie Randolph joined a delegation of black state legislators two weeks ago on a visit to the Washington offices of Bayh, Sen. Richard Lugar and Rep. Peter Visclosky to lobby for the appointments former Indiana Attorney General Karen Freeman-Wilson of Gary as the U.S. attorney for Northern Indiana and Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter as a federal judge.
Freeman-Wilson, who did not attend the news conference, said she intends to work to advance the cause of drug courts during the next four years and does not want to be considered for the district attorney post.
“It’s an honor to be thought of as a candidate and I fully support the idea of an African-American appointee,” said Freeman-Wilson, who was appointed a state judge by Bayh when he was governor and later picked to be Indiana attorney general by late Gov. Frank O’Bannon.
There currently are two openings for federal judgeships in Indianapolis and one in South Bend. U.S. attorney appointees typically change when the presidency changes hands between the two major political parties.
Information from: Post-Tribune, http://www.post-trib.com
