After years of being something of a rag-doll toy for whatever political machine was in power, the Hawaii Judicial Selection Commission is showing both real independence and real smarts.

On Nov. 16, the commission decided in favor of transparency and openness by announcing that it would make public the names of judicial nominees sent to the governor.

Hawaii’s governors have long patted themselves on the back for the wisdom and far-sighted maturity they have shown in selecting state judges. Our last two governors, Ben Cayetano and Linda Lingle, one Democrat and one Republican, both pointed to their state Supreme Court picks as major accomplishments.

I would agree that having Simeon Acoba and Mark Recktenwald on the state’s high court gives us a better Supreme Court.

The nine-member selection commission was much more suspect when former union boss and now incarcerated federal felon Gary Rodrigues was a commissioner. During the Lingle years, there were complaints that Lingle picked mostly former prosecutors as judges and not enough women were named to the bench.

So now to have Susan Ichinose, the newly elected commission chairwoman, take the issue of transparency away from Gov. Neil Abercrombie and settle it with intelligence and dispatch is reason to cheer.

The commission interviews possible judicial nominees and prepares a list from which the governor picks one. That nominee then goes to the state Senate for confirmation hearings. Governors have routinely made the list of nominees public.

If the list of names is public then everyone can tell what sort of talent pool the governor had to pick from. The public will know if the governor is being forced to pick one candidate because the commission stacked the deck, or if the governor is avoiding a more capable candidate for whatever reason.

Abercrombie bucked the openness trend, saying that making the list public stops lawyers from applying for judgeships.

The Star-Advertiser took Abercrombie to court, arguing that the state’s open record laws trumped the governor’s secrecy.

Even after the court ruling agreeing with the Star-Advertiser, Abercrombie refused to say he was wrong and instead said he was still considering whether to appeal.

Chris Conybeare, president of the Hawaii Media Council, praised the selection commission action, calling it an "end to government secrecy in the matter of judicial selection."

"We urge the administration to embrace the wisdom of these decisions," Conybeare said.

The commission’s decision to just do it and open the list speaks volumes for the realized need for an open government.

Ichinose said the commission "is committed to increasing the transparency of its activities to the extent possible by the law and consistent with its goal of choosing the best possible nominees from the broadest and most diverse pool of candidates it can obtain."

Notice that Ichinose and her fellow commissioners didn’t think making the list public would stop candidates from applying. And as an added bonus for those interested in judicial trends, the commission said it will also compile and release statistical and historical information summarizing patterns and trends in judicial selection.

"The JSC believes that the judicial selection process will be strengthened by the new rules because the work produce of the JSC will now be more easily accessible and more readily evaluated by the public," Ichinose wrote.

Imagine how government productivity would be strengthened if each state agency and leader adopted that message.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.