Instead, justices are subject to a merit retention vote every six years.
Both merit retention in the final bill now being negotiated by a House-Senate conference committee.
Until now, the "merit retention" ballots have been non-partisan affairs and no judge has ever been voted off the court.
"We cannot have a state where judges and justices who are up for merit retention are fearful that they will lose their jobs simply because there is some segment that has money and the ability to speak out and that wants to intimidate the third branch of government".
"The short reason why we have merit selection and merit retention for the appellate bench in Florida is that (the Supreme Court) was riddled with corruption all because of the politics that went into how they were selected," said Martin Dyckman, whose book "A Most Dishonorable Court: Scandal and Reform in the Florida Judiciary," chronicled judicial missteps that led to the merit retention system.
The justices face a popular vote to remain in office this fall under the state's merit retention law, which was created in the 1970s to insulate the high court from political pressure.
Created in 1976, Florida's merit retention system was an attempt to take politics out of the judicial nominating process following a series of embarrassing imbroglios involving high court justices.
Nobody has written us, contacted us, to say, 'This needs to be on the table.' " Why is merit scholarship retention not part of the U.S. News data haul?
Instead the state would adopt a new system of initial merit appointment and nonpartisan retention elections.
Regrettably, states that elect their top judges show no inclination to address these distressing trends by replacing judicial elections with systems of merit appointment that avoid retention votes.
Our findings suggest that the spatial arrangement of geomorphic units and their associated aquatic communities can be an important control on nitrogen dynamics in large rivers, demonstrating that fluvial geomorphic features merit consideration when nutrient retention and removal in rivers is examined.
