It’s like a game of musical chairs – except, at the end, there’s one too many seats instead of too few. As our Ernest Luning reported earlier, the U.S. Senate voted 56-41 on Thursday to confirm Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, filling the vacancy created by Justice Neil Gorsuch’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Which, of course, leaves an opening on the state’s highest court. Only, this time, the U.S. Senate won’t have a say in who gets the seat; it’ll be up to the Colorado Supreme Court Nominating Commission. The commission will meet Nov. 27 and 28, interview candidates and come up with a short list of nominees from which Gov. John Hickenlooper will pick Eid’s replacement.

Here’s more via a press release hot off the presses from the Colorado Judicial Department:

To be eligible for appointment to fill the vacancy, the applicant must be a qualified elector of the State of Colorado and must have been admitted to the practice of law in Colorado for five years.  The current annual salary for this position is $177,350.  The initial term of office of a Supreme Court justice is a provisional term of two years; thereafter, the incumbent justice, if retained by the voters, has a term of 10 years.

Application forms are available from the office of the ex officio chair of the nominating commission, Chief Justice Nancy E. Rice, or from the Supreme Court Clerk, Cheryl Stevens, 2 E. 14th Ave., Denver, CO 80203.  Applications also are available on the court’s home page at: https://www.courts.state.co.us/Careers/Judge.cfm.

So, who gets to sit in on that very special star chamber that (in conjunction with the guv) picks our state’s most powerful judges? The press release has that info, too – designated by congressional district: