Citizens of Johnson County, Kansas have successfully placed an initiative on the November ballot that would end the secret selection of judges (through a so-called “merit” system) and allow voters to decide who sits on the bench. Justice At Stake’s GavelGrab blog links to a story in the St. Charles County Business Record reporting that some of the grandees of the county’s legal establishment are defending their power to control the courts. In a recent press conference, one member of the county’s lawyer-dominated judicial selection commission protested that commissioners are only “focused on selecting the best person to be judge.”

But the problem isn’t with the good intentions of individual commission members; it’s with a system that gives too much power to a small handful of unelected, unaccountable commissioners who meet in secret to pick judges. Democratic election of judges is the best way to disperse that power to where it belongs – with the people.