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Surrogate’s Court judge
eyes primary victory
BY AIDAN GRAHAM
Margarita López Torres isn’t ready to
hang up her robe just yet.
First elected to the Kings County
Civil Court in 1992, re-elected a decade
later, and then elevated to Surrogate’s
Court in 2005, López Torres has weathered
her fair share bruising political
strife — more than she would care to
admit.
But this time will be different, according
to the veteran Brooklyn judge,
who faces a contested Democratic primary
on June 25.
Having run her last campaign as
an anti-establishment insurgency, López
Torres now has the political machine
behind her, enjoying the backing
of party boss Frank Seddio, along
with the public support of the Borough
President and 12 of Brooklyn’s 16 city
councilmembers.
Her ingratiation with the local political
bigwigs marks an extraordinary
turnaround for López Torres,
who found herself in exile a decade ago
after she dared to cross the established
political order in a move that ended in
2008 before the United States Supreme
Court.
Then-Civil Court Justice López
Torres had felt ready for a step up
the judicial ladder — to the state Supreme
Court. The promotion required
the blessing of Vito Lopez, who then
served as Chairman of the Kings
County Democratic Party, which essentially
chooses judges to get posts in
the higher court at an annual judicial
convention.
But López Torres never received
the Supreme Court nod — a slight that
she attributes to her rejecting an overture
from the party chair.
“Vito insisted that I hire his daughter,
who lacked experience,” said López
Torres. “I refused.”
After being denied the promotion
year-after-year, López Torres sued
the state Board of Elections, arguing
that the judicial convention model provided
citizens no voice in the selection
of state Supreme Court judges.
The case sparked a fervorous debate
across the legal profession, rising
through the court system, before it
was eventually decided by the nation’s
highest legal authority in favor of the
status quo.
And while the decision was a massive
blow to judicial reformers, it also
came with massive personal costs
to the plaintiff, who was essentially
blackballed by the powerful interests
whose authority she had questioned.
“There’s an expectation that the
party leader can kind-of dictate who
your staff will be. I think that’s intervention,”
said López Torres. “And if
you decline to do that — they have a
long memory.”
Despite the personal pain that the
losing effort brought her, the judge
Margarita López Torres
says she stands by the crusade.
“I still believe that the convention
method of selecting judges is not the
most democratic, for all the same reasons
that were laid out in that Supreme
Court case,” she said. “I testifi ed in the
Albany legislature about this. I fought
very hard. Now, I think I’ve taken it as
far as I could.”
And although she waved a white
fl ag in the fi ght to reform the judicial
selection process, López Torres remained
undaunted by the entrenched
system which viewed her as persona
non grata, launching a campaign for
Surrogate’s Court — which hears
cases involving adoptions and the affairs
of deceased person’s estates.
López Torres eked out a victory in
that 2005 election, stunning naysayers
who questioned the feasibility of an independent,
renegade campaign.
Years later, as the dust of her previous
political battles has settled, López
Torres is adjusting to her unfamiliar
place as the chosen favorite of the
party — which is now led by Vito’s successor,
Frank Seddio, who is himself a
former surrogate judge.
“I’ve put distance between any political
infl uence and the court,” she
said. “And things have gotten better.
Frank Seddio is a different person. He
has never tried to infl uence my court
— Not that I’m easily infl uenced.”
Now the barrier-breaking judge —
who was the fi rst Latinx judge in New
York City, and the fi rst Latinx Surrogate
in New York State — hopes to
turn her newfound insider status to secure
her re-election to the Surrogate’s
Court, a far-from guaranteed feat
against current Civil-Court Judge Elena
Baron, whose bid is back by Gary
Tilzer, who managed López Torres’
2005 campaign.
“I love what I do,” said López Torres.
“I want to continue doing it.
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