Kansas Dust Storm
September 1, 2010
Two years ago, a group in Johnson County, Kansas promoted a ballot measure to restore the right to vote for county judges and end the local “merit” selection board. They unfortunately came up short - in large part due to the fact that “merit” proponents outspent supporters of democratic judicial elections 3:1 to defeat the measure, with most of the money coming from legal elites.
A group of Kansas voters is again calling into question the “merit” selection process. The Kansas Reporter (published by Kansas Policy Institute) has an article describing the effort to get rid of “merit” committees in Leavenworth and Atchinson counties. A petition is circulating in those counties in hopes of placing the issue on the November ballot. Petition supporter Donna Gillett says lawyers are the problem - four of the nine members on the “merit” panel are elected by lawyers:
“The appointment system denies the citizens of this district the right to participate equally in the selection of our judges.”
The Kansas Reporter also describes a separate anti-”merit” group led by election lawyer, James Bopp. The group has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Wichita to stop five members of the Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission from participating in judicial selection - all five are lawyers and all were elected by the state bar association.
As with the petitioners, Bopp also believes the favored treatment of the legal class is a problem when it comes to the state’s “merit” process. In fact, he believes Kansas’s “merit” selection law violates both the U.S. Constitution and the Kansas Constitution:
“If the Kansas Constitution said that the AFL-CIO is going to select judges, or the Right to Life or KKK or whoever, it would be perfectly obvious that would be wrong and this is equally wrong,” Bopp said. “There is nothing special about lawyers, and they’re more conflicted because their bread and butter is personal injury, and judges determine those cases, so many lawyers have an interest in who is the judge.”
“Nothing special about lawyers” — couldn’t have said it better myself.