Governor Withdraws Ill-Judged Nomination.

Governor Ned Lamont has withdrawn the nomination of Alina Marquez-Reynolds to the Superior Court, Daily Ructions has learned. Monday’s hearing on the Fairfield lawyer revealed she was quickly ushered through the approval process for no clear reason. Marquez-Reynolds was admitted to practice law in Connecticut on Friday, three days before Monday’s hearing.

Governors rarely lose a judicial nomination. It is difficult to recall a governor whose party enjoys overwhelming control of the legislature blundering so seriously that party members in the House and Senate cannot hold their noses, avert their gazes and lift the governor’s choice to the bench. Associate Justice Andrew McDonald’s nomination for Chief Justice was narrowly approved by the House and defeated by the evenly divided Senate when two Democrats joined 18 Republicans to oppose Dannel P. Malloy’s 2018 nomination of his close adviser. A Senate with today’s 23-13 partisan divide would have approved McDonald with no suspense.

Judiciary Committee members appeared ready to advance Marquez-Reynolds’s nomination to the full legislature Monday afternoon. They decided to hold the nomination as questions on when she had obtained in-house counsel status after joining the Grace Farm Foundation in 2019.

Published April 26, 2022.