AUGUSTA – In the first expansion of the state’s judicial system in a decade, Gov. John Baldacci on Monday nominated four candidates for new judgeships to help create Maine’s first business and consumer court and to reduce a backlog in existing courts.

“This is one of the most important developments certainly in the time since I have been chief, and in fact prior to that when I was a trial judge,” said Chief Justice Leigh Saufley, head of the state’s judicial system. “We are very excited about being able to return to providing real and meaningful judicial services to the business community.”

“The Legislature had authorized this to happen [earlier this year] to better serve a lot of the business issues that were getting clogged in the courts,” Baldacci said Monday. “We are bringing some very talented people to the bench.”

District Court Judge Andrew Marcus Horton was nominated to the Superior Court, allowing the governor to nominate four new District Court judges: Public Safety Commissioner Michael P. Cantara, Special Assistant to the Attorney General Charles Allan Dow, and lawyers MaryGay Kennedy and Valerie Stanfill.

All of the nominations will go before the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee during public hearings in January and must be confirmed by the state Senate.

Saufley said the court system simply has not had enough judges to meet its responsibilities. She said many businesspeople have told her that they have not tried to resolve even relatively simple disputes through the courts because they take so long.

“And we have had significant backlogs of criminal cases in some of our courts,” Saufley said. “The additional resources will mean we can address those backlogs.”

The new business and consumer court will “likely” be staffed by existing judges, she said, with the new judges helping to ease the workload after they are confirmed and go through the training that all new judges receive. The new business and consumer court will have two judges assigned to it once all of the new judges are on the bench.

“And it is my plan that this new court will be the first paperless court in Maine,” Saufley said. “We hope to have all of the docketing and filing done electronically before the end of 2007.”

Saufley said the biggest caseload problems are in York and Cumberland counties, where there were more than 1,000 criminal cases pending in each of the county Superior Courts when she had a “snapshot” taken of caseloads earlier this year. She said many of those were felony offenses for crimes with potential penalties measured in years, not months.

“We have set some benchmarks for ourselves, and we are meeting some and not meeting others,” Saufley said. “It is very difficult to get an accurate count of cases without some serious time being spent going through case by case and determining why a case has not come to trial.”

She said not all courts are behind in their case workloads. For example, she said, the Houlton District Court in Aroostook County handled 91.7 percent of its family law cases within nine months, better than the 90 percent goal that had been set as a benchmark.

Democratic Sen. Barry Hobbins of Saco, who led the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee in the last session, expects the new committee will be named this week and that hearings will be held early next month.

“These four new judge positions are critical to addressing the courts’ backlog,” said Hobbins, who was re-elected and is expected again to be chairman of the committee. “People should not have to wait and wait for a trial or to have their case heard. These new judges will help.”

Hobbins, a lawyer, said he was impressed with the nominees and knows all of them. He believes the governor has made some “good” nominations.

The nominations do create a form of political musical chairs. The current chief judge of the District Court, Vendean Vafiades, was nominated Monday to fill a vacancy on the Public Utilities Commission. If she is confirmed, Baldacci will have to fill that judgeship.

If Cantara is confirmed, Baldacci will have to find a new commissioner of public safety.

“It’s the start of my second term,” Baldacci said. “Time to shake things up a bit and bring in some new blood and new ideas.”

He said there will be additional nominations and announcements in the days ahead.

Nominees at a glance

. Andrew Marcus Horton of Falmouth has been serving as a judge on the District Court since 1999. Before his judgeship, Horton had been a trial lawyer for 21 years with the firm Verrill & Dana, where he was a partner. He is a former president of the Maine Trial Lawyers Association.

. Michael Cantara of Biddeford has been serving as commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety for nearly four years. He served as district attorney for York County from 1991 to 2003 and was mayor of Biddeford.

. Charles Dow of Winthrop is the special assistant to Attorney General Steven Rowe. Dow, a native of Fort Kent, has been involved in policy and legislative development for the attorney general and has advised Maine law enforcement on compliance issues. Before to his tenure in the Attorney General’s Office, he served in several senior staff positions in the Maine House.

. MaryGay Kennedy of Brunswick is a partner at the firm Germani & Riggle LLC, where she has specialized in family law. She was the founding director of the Maine Court Appointed Special Advocate Program, which provides volunteer advocates to children involved in child protection proceedings.

. Valerie Stanfill of Turner is practicing as a trial law attorney with the firm Troubh Heisler. Before her current position she was a visiting clinical professor at the University of Maine School of Law. She also served as acting director of the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic.