State Chief Judge Rowan Wilson has hired the state Senate Democratic majority’s director of policy and research as his top staffer — after Democrats rejected Gov. Kathy Hochul’s prior choice for chief judge Hector LaSalle.

Wilson selected top Senate staffer Noah Mamis for the post, who will start working for the chief judge at the Court of Appeals after Labor Day, a spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration confirmed.

Critics have raised questions about the hiring.

“It reeks of a quid pro quo,” said Sen. Anthony Palumbo (R-Riverhead), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The independence of the judiciary appears to be compromised.”

For the first time in New York history, the state Senate had rejected a governor’s nomination for chief judge, Hector Lasalle, who is an associate justice for the 2nd Department in Brooklyn. Even more startling is that Hochul’s fellow Democrats put the kibosh on LaSalle.

LaSalle, a former prosecutor, was considered too moderate by left-leaning Democrats in the state Senate. Union leaders also came out against his nomination after questioning his record on cases involving labor.

Hochul then nominated the more liberal Wilson who already was an associate justice on the state’s highest court and preferred by progressive Democrats in the Senate, who confirmed him.

“It doesn’t look good at all. If this was an innocent mistake, it was dumb — and Rowan Wilson is not dumb,” said state Republican Party chairman Ed Cox of Mamis’ hire.

Wilson was one of the dissenters when the state’s highest court struck down as unconstitutional the congressional district lines drawn by Democrats as partisan gerrymandering to favor its candidates over Republicans. The maps were then crafted by a court-appointed master for the 2022 elections.

But a New York appellate court recently ordered new congressional maps be redrawn ahead of the 2024 midterms, siding with Democrats wanting a shot to reverse embarrassing losses in last November’s congressional races. Those maps would be crafted by a bipartisan redistricting commission that failed to reach consensus last time.

The redistricting case will come again before Rowan and the Court of Appeals.

Palumbo claims Rowan has a conflict and should recuse himself.

Rowan, through the OCA, declined comment.