Revamping Mo Courts Plan won’t be on ‘08 ballots
The Missouri House today killed off, by a vote of 69-83, a proposed constitutional amendment to change how the state selects its judges for the higher state courts and in urban areas.
The defeat was somewhat stunning, given the strong push by some Republicans — and conservative groups like the St. Louis Federalist Society and the (apparently now defunct) Adam Smith Foundation – to revamp the state’s 65-year-old setup and replace it with a selection system that would give more power to the governor and the state Senate.
As a result, no ballot proposal will be on the August or November ballot. The initiative-petition drive is also apparently dead.
State Democrats were celebrating the proposal’s defeat, with the House caucus noting that no Democrats voted to put it on the ballot. (Actually, the caucus was in error. Our own Lee Logan reports that Juanita Head Walton voted for the
measure, and was the only Dem to do so.
A number of prominent Republicans, including former state Supreme Court judge Chip Robertson, also opposed the changes in the current system. Robertson was a leader in the effort to block the amendment.
Still awaiting word on whether Chip, or someone/something else, gets the credit for today’s vote and demise of the initiative.
Great……Am thankful that present system is left as is. Calmer more wiser heads prevailed.
As McClellan pointed out in the Post, we are now left with a system where the Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court turns to the 3 plaintiffs’ lawyers on the selection commission and says: “I think, X, Y and Z will make great judges on the court. You agree, don’t you?” The three attorneys on the 7 member commission then turn to the Chief Justice/Chair of the Commission and say in unison: “Why, Chief Justice, of course I agree with you. Now, can we please spend a few minutes talking about the case that I have in your court?” The system is not a selection, but a coronation where the judges and lawyers decide who should be the next judge. If this system is good, then why don’t we just do away with public input into any of our branches of government. Nice job Republicans. Hope you enjoy the offices the minority party gets in 2009.
As an actual attorney, I am really tired of the endless speculation about the cloistered nature of the legal world in Missouri by people whose knowledge of it comes exclusively from republican talking points. If you knew how difficult it is to actually get something in front of the Missouri Supreme Court and how principled judges and lawyers are about refraining from ex parte communication, you would realize how ridiculous your scenario is. Knowing how informed the electorate generally is about candidates for public office (I offer George Webber as a fine example), I would MUCH rather have lawyers who have to practice in front of judges helping to make the choice about who should serve on the bench. Just for giggles, why don’t you pull a couple of campaign finance reports from judges in counties that still have partisan elections and see how many law firms and solo attorneys are listed as donors. Those lawyers, I promise you, are routinely practicing in front of the recipient judges at trial. Any human being would be more impartial to a lawyer that sits on a selection commission - where several members are responsible for the vote - than presiding over a trial in which that human knows good and well one of the lawyers just gave him a couple hundred dollars in the last election (and maybe the opposing counsel gave to the other side).
Get a grip Penelope. At least the campaign reports are public. But I guarantee you that the Judges are more responsive to voters than a few donors. By the way the mo plan only covers a small minority of Judges in this state, so all of this tripe about how good our system is really a hit at the majority of our Judges. So who is really the anti Judge crowd. It is the Bar and stupid reps who spout off the MATA talking points. What, 5 of our 114 counties are the so-called MO plan. What a resounding level of support. They will have wished that they had accepted this small reform bill. Any proposal that is placed on the ballot by intiative will certainly be much more ambitious. And please stop repeating the mantra that so many states heve copied our plan. Well, almost everyone of the states have tweaked the commission makeup to reflect the broader lay public. We are stuck in the forites. Also let us not forget why we got the plan back then. CORRUPT Democrat party bosses controlled the Judiciary in STL and KC. Welcome to the future MATA, a small battle was won, but the war looms ahead, and the people are with us, even if a few misguided (and soon defeated) GOP Reps are not.