"The General Assembly reelected Charlottesville General District Judge Robert H. Downer Jr. to another six-year term Tuesday amid some discussion that Downer is an unlikely choice to succeed Judge Paul M. Peatross on the Albemarle Circuit bench.

“Bob Downer is doing a very good job as a general district judge. I think our vote today indicates that we are very satisfied with the job he is doing,” Del. Bill Janis, R-Glen Allen, said after Downer won his new term on a House vote of 93-0 and a Senate vote of 40-0.

Janis is one of eight Republicans among 12 state legislators representing portions of the 16th Judicial Circuit. All 12 are likely to meet by early February to consider the seven lawyers seeking to succeed Peatross, whose retirement takes effect at the end of January.

“I believe Jim Camblos is a viable candidate. I believe Cheryl Higgins is a viable candidate. I believe Claude Worrell is a viable candidate,” Janis said, noting that all three are current or former prosecutors.

Janis repeated that he and others view Downer as a good Charlottesville General District Court judge. A few lawmakers have said privately that they expect Downer to stay on that bench when another lawyer, most likely either Higgins or Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Camblos, is chosen by the lawmakers as their pick to succeed Peatross.

Dels. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, and David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, would not comment on who their top picks for the circuit judgeship might be.

“I’m not going to confirm or deny that [Camblos, Higgins and Worrell] are my close three,” Bell said. “I will continue to gather information until we have made the final decision. It will be whenever we can get the 12 of us together.”

If the 12 legislators representing portions of the circuit can agree, then the House and Senate Republican caucuses are most likely to meet and accept that choice. If they cannot reach a consensus, then partisan politics is more likely to be the trump card in any decision.

Higgins and Downer were the top two candidates of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association, which rated each as highly qualified.

The Charlottesville area’s Fraternal Order of Police lodge passed a resolution supporting the bar’s choice of those two, which could be seen as helping Higgins, a Republican, as lawmakers privately acknowledge the chances of Downer, perceived as a Democrat, being chosen are slim.

Janis, who once worked for Camblos as an assistant Albemarle prosecutor, is seen as a likely Camblos backer. He defended the partisan aspects of the judicial selection process, saying, “It’s infinitely superior to a process in which some of the lawyers get to pick the judge.”

Janis said the Charlottesville bar discriminates as an institution against prosecutors in its ratings process.

“The notion that the lawyers of the Charlottesville bar can pick who the next judge will be is like saying that the inmates get to pick the next warden,” said Janis, a lawyer whose district includes Louisa and Goochland counties as well as portions of western Henrico.

Bell said the five members of his resident advisory panel interviewed the judicial candidates last week and “they have provided me with their confidential assessments. I find them more candid if they are confidential.”

Toscano said he decided not to participate with Bell in that panel.

“I thought it should be a deliberative body. I thought they should meet and discuss the candidates and then report to Rob and myself,” Toscano said.

Janis took issue with a letter to the editor of The Daily Progress from Bruce Williamson published Tuesday. Noting that Williamson, a former lawyer, substitute judge and law professor, had given $48,500 to Democratic Party candidates, Janis said, “I am a little bit offended that Bruce Williamson is painting himself as the paragon of bipartisanship. That’s laughable on its face.”

Williamson wrote that Bell and the other legislators should choose between Downer and Higgins, adding that if they ignore the bar’s rating of the two as highly qualified, “they will have chosen politics over merit.”

Janis also said that Democrats in the recent past had chosen someone other than a candidate endorsed by the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association for a juvenile and domestic relations court judge position." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, January 24, 2007)