california capitol Sacramento State Capitol building on Capitol Way. Credit: Jason Doiy/ALM

When California's legislature returns to session in January, the judiciary's annual campaign for budget money begins in earnest.

Chief on the judicial branch wish list will be hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for new courthouses to replace buildings that don't meet current seismic, safety or technology standards.

Which courts end up with that money could prove one of the biggest judiciary-related political battles of 2020 for judges, court administrators and lawmakers eager to see construction dollars go to their districts.

The Judicial Council this month sent a ranked list of 80 projects with a price tag of $13.2 billion to the Legislature. No one expects the governor and Legislature to allocate all of that money—or even most of it. Instead, the hope is that budget-writers will set aside funding for as many of those projects as possible, starting with the top of the list.

"Whether the list will hold up, I don't know," Martin Hoshino, the Judicial Council's administrative director, told reporters in December. "But there seemed to be a lot of deference to us before. But again, it's both a fiscal process as well as a political process."

A $5 billion bond construction program authorized by lawmakers in 2008 delivered some new courthouses around the state but not the 41 projects originally envisioned. State leaders diverted $1.4 billion in bond revenues during the recession years to pay for court operations and other state services. Money generated by fines and fees levied to cover the bond debt service has not materialized at the levels originally projected.

Sympathetic lawmakers released general fund money to pay for some of the unfunded projects. But they also asked judicial leaders to take a fresh look at its list of top construction needs.

How that final list of recommended projects was compiled is a subject of consternation or relief depending on which court leader is asked. Judiciary branch administrators released a draft ranking in August based on a host of factors, including the current buildings' seismic and fire safety levels, disability access and security features.

At the top of the list was a four-courtroom courthouse in Lake County. Facilities in San Bernardino, Kern and San Joaquin were also deemed the most "immediate" need. Kevin Brazile, presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the largest court system in the nation, expressed his dismay in a five-page letter that none of his court's projects were ranked in the top tiers of need.

"The court believes it is necessary to utilize either an alternate scoring tool to capture the complexity of providing justice in Los Angeles County or recommend a separate funding allocation methodology to address these complex and critical elements," Brazile wrote to a Judicial Council committee reviewing the project rankings.

Also unhappy were leaders from south Monterey County, where a small courthouse long planned for rural Greenfield plummeted in the rankings in favor of a new seven-courtroom building in more suburban, coastal Seaside. The city of Greenfield had already pledged $10 million and four acres for the building. Residents in the south county must now travel 50 miles or more to the courthouse in Monterey.

After hearing hours of testimony and advisory committee discussions, the judicial branch's administrators took a fresh look at the rankings. In November, they submitted a new list to the Judicial Council, one that put an emphasis on seismic safety.

The Lake County courthouse in Lakeport continued to top the list. But joining the highest "immediate need" category for the first time were two courthouses in Los Angeles County. Nine more Los Angeles projects were placed on the second-tier "critical need" list.

Brazile told the advisory committee he was "very grateful" that it had "fine-tune[d]" the list " to better address the needs of large courts."

Other courts' leaders experienced a different fate. The Judicial Council in 2007 had deemed Inyo County's historic courthouse to be a serious seismic risk. The draft list had ranked the southeastern county's project 13th in need. The revised list dropped Inyo's planned two-room courthouse to 28th.

"When the list came out … and we were able to evaluate the new criteria, somehow the building is now at moderate risk," Inyo court executive officer Pamela Foster told the advisory committee. "So I guess I should be happy that our building is now somehow safer than it was in 2007, but I don't think that that's probably the case."

The new list also bumped the Greenfield courthouse down to a third-tier "high" need. Seaside retained its "immediate" need label.

"The court explicitly did not prioritize either of those two projects," said Chris Ruhl, the executive officer of the Monterey County court. The court is now looking at expanding south county court services, including possibly reopening a shuttered King City courthouse, he said.

The Court Facilities Advisory Committee forwarded the final list to the Judicial Council, which endorsed it in November.

"If your position stayed the same and you were in the upper tier, you thought the council got it right," Hoshino said in December. "If your position changed and you weren't in the tier, the council got it wrong."

The Legislature is not required to stick to the list's priorities when choosing which projects to fund.