Governor’s Council, Problems with the Industrial Accident Board, can they be fixed?

The Industrial Accident Board appointments, unlike other judicial appointments are term appointments.

The term is a six year term.

The Industrial Accident Board also has a board which reviews the judges and may determine a judge to be “unqualified”, thus preventing their reappointment.

Unfortunately it has been the current practice to allow “unqualified” judges to continue serving past the end of their term, currently up to two years past the expiration of their term.

At the Governor’s Council hearing on August 1 another issue regarding the Industrial Accident Board came up.

The administration had submitted a nominee for consideration to replace one of these holdover judges. 

As the Governor’s Council prepared to vote on the nominee, the issue of the length of this nominee’s term was brought up.  Members of the Council expressed their understanding that the length would be to fill out the remaining term, the administration wanted a new six year term.  The vote was tabled.

The Governor’s Council is clearly doing their job by properly advising the Governor, hopefully he will listen.

The administration should make appointments for positions that have expired, and judges that have been determined to be unqualified should be the priority for replacement.

Audio of the August 1 meeting may be heard on my website:

PatrickMcCabeGovernorsCouncil.com

As well as audio of recent hearings of the nominees submitted to the Governor’s Council.

Patrick McCabe

Candidate for Governor's Council District Two

A debate of the Democratic Candidates will be held Wednesday August 8 at the Morse Library in Natick at 7:00 pm.

Primary Thursday September 6, 2012