Changes the rules for who appoints judges when vacancies occur between elections. Currently, the governor appoints them. This would set up a system where anybody in the state could submit nominations to a nonpartisan “Judicial Merit Commission,” which would then evaluate their fitness and send that info to the General Assembly. The legislature would then pick two names to send to the governor. In cases where the vacancy occurs right before an election, the chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court would make the pick instead of the governor.
