By Salvador Rizzo and Matt Friedman /The Star-Ledger

TRENTON — The last open seat on the New Jersey Supreme Court is likely to stay vacant for the rest of Gov. Chris Christie's term, The Star-Ledger has learned.

Christie and state Senate President Stephen Sweeney last week ended their four-year stalemate over court nominations — a development cheered by leading lawyers, judges and court watchers across the state. Amid the crossfire, Christie had ousted two sitting justices and Sweeney had led efforts to block four of the governor's nominees.

Now those battles are in the past, as the governor and Senate president struck a deal that would keep Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, a Democrat, on the court until 2030 if he decides to serve that long, while state Superior Court Judge Lee Solomon, a Republican, would be elevated to one of two vacant seats as an associate justice.

The Senate is expected to approve both nominations within a month. But that’s as much common ground as the two leaders can find on the court: Sweeney (D-Gloucester) is unwilling to accept any nomination from Christie unless it is a Democrat, according to two Democratic sources in the state Senate who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss it publicly.

And Christie, having just angered conservatives by renominating Rabner — despite promises to steer a "liberal" and "activist" court to the right — is unlikely to grant Sweeney his wish.

That means the last vacancy on the seven-member court — now temporarily held by Judge Mary Catherine Cuff, a Democrat — is likely to remain open as long as Christie is governor.

"We can just agree to disagree right now," said Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He called Cuff a seasoned jurist who has performed well since Rabner assigned her to the top court in October 2012. She would reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 in August 2017 in the final year of Christie’s term.

"I don’t think it’s detrimental to the court’s performance — it hasn’t been," Scutari said.

Spokesmen for Christie and Sweeney declined to comment. After announcing the Supreme Court agreement with Sweeney on Wednesday, Christie said he didn’t have any potential nominee lined up for the high court’s remaining vacant seat.

Scutari said his committee will hold confirmation hearings for Rabner and Solomon in the third or fourth week of June.

"They’ll be required to answer questions, and I’m going to require specific answers," he said. But he added that he expected both nominations to be successful.

"It’s a good day for the judiciary and for the people of New Jersey when leaders can come together and select some people of obviously good reputation to serve on our highest court," he said. "Hopefully, it will get back some of the luster that it lost in this battle over the last four years."

The Supreme Court's five current justices could serve together for nearly another decade. From left, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and Justices Jaynee LaVecchia, Barry Albin, Anne Patterson and Faustino Fernandez-Vina in Trenton.

For the governor, it means his bid to reshape the court is likely to end up an unfinished project. Christie came into office at a time when there were four Democrats, two Republicans and one independent on the Supreme Court. He would leave the Statehouse having flipped only one seat, with three Republicans, three Democrats and one independent.

At his news conference Wednesday, Christie said "opinions change and shift all the time," and that it would be hard to say what mark he will leave on the Supreme Court. But he said it has changed "significantly" since he’s been governor.

If Solomon is confirmed, he would be the third Christie appointee after Justices Anne Patterson and Faustino Fernandez-Vina. "That’s nearly half the court that’s been changed," the governor said.

"The best any governor can do is to try to make the best decisions you can about the people you want to put on the court, and then watch them work," he said. "And we’ll see what happens."

The Supreme Court has rebuffed Christie on major issues such as school funding, affordable housing and same-sex marriage. By and large, the same justices who wrote those opinions will be shaping the court’s legacy for about a decade, and Rabner would lead it for the next 16 years if he serves until age 70.

Justice Barry Albin, a Democrat, has eight years before reaching the mandatory retirement age, while Justice Jaynee LaVecchia, an independent, can serve another 10 years. Aside from Cuff’s, no other seat is likely to go vacant before Christie’s term ends in 2017.

Patterson, a Republican, is the next justice to come up for tenure, in 2018.

Robert Williams, an expert on the court at Rutgers Law School in Camden, said the past four years marked the "most serious crisis in the history of the modern judiciary" of New Jersey, which was established after World War II.

"Many people see this as a very, very positive step, but they’re a little hesitant to say that the danger to judicial independence has passed," Williams said.

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