Judge Ed Lewis' successor will eventually be nominated by Gov. Tom Wolf and confirmed by the state Senate.

The Jim Thorpe native is retiring on Feb. 3 after nearly 30 years on the bench as magisterial district judge.Lewis will have senior judge status, but the timeline for a full-time replacement is unknown."In the interim, Carbon County President Judge Roger Nanovic will determine whether the work in Lewis' office can be divided among the remaining magisterial district judges in the county, or whether he will ask our office to appoint a senior judge to handle the workload," said Art Heinz, communications coordinator for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts. "If the latter is the case, senior judges would rotate on 30-day intervals until an appointment is confirmed by the Senate."While Pennsylvania still operates without a full budget, the appointment of Lewis' successor won't be held up by the stalemate."The part of the budget that Gov. Wolf passed at the end of 2015, which also released emergency money to schools and local services organizations, included the judicial funding," said Mark Davis, communications director for Sen. John Yudichak. "Any nomination would not be affected by the impasse."The appointee would serve until the end of 2017 and would need to run in the 2017 election to seek a full six-year term.