UPDATE: The oft-maligned Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys has responded to the proposed ballot initiative on the Missouri Plan with a sharply worded news release of its own:

“Better Courts for Missouri should change its name to Justice for the Highest Bidders,” said MATA President Alan Mandel regarding the group that is running the petition drive. “Their attempt to hoodwink Missouri voters into believing they want change for any other reason than to escape accountability to Missouri consumers is a gross misrepresentation of the truth.”

And this from MATA executive director Sara Schuett: “Demands of transparency and accountability are laughable coming from a group whose director won’t even reveal the source of the money being used in this attempt to cripple the justice system.”

JEFFERSON CITY — Stymied by an unwilling Missouri Senate, opponents of the current method of choosing many judges in the state will head to the ballot and ask voters for help.

This morning on a conference call, James Harris, director of the Better Courts for Missouri group, announced that his group would be filing an initiative petition to get rid of the Missouri Plan and replace it with the federal model for choosing judges.

“It has worked well for the United States for more than 200 years and we think it will work well for Missouri,” said Harris.

Under the federal model, the president nominates judges to federal courts, and the Senate confirms them. The same model would be applied to Missouri courts, but with the governor making the nomination, if Harris is successful in getting the petition on the ballot and voters approve it.

Under the Missouri Plan, which has been adopted or modified by many states, appellate judicial commissions made up of gubernatorial appointees and lawyers nominate a slate of judges to the governor, and the governor chooses from among them.

Harris, Sen. Jim Lembke, R-Lemay, and other Republicans, have been critical of that process because of the secrecy of the judicial commissions and the influence of the Missouri Association of Trial Lawyers, which has been successful in getting many of its members elected to the commission.

Harris said the process produces “liberal” judges, but he wasn’t critical of any specific judicial appointments or decisions in Missouri, a point supporters of the Missouri Plan have made in defending the current process.

During the legislative session, in which Lembke pushed a bill that would make a variety of changes to the Missouri Plan, he suggested that if lawmakers didn’t adopt the changes he proposed, then Harris’ group would seek to get rid of the Missouri Plan entirely.

Asked if this was simply part of the political pressure being put on the Senate to make changes, Harris said his group was “serious” about the petition process. He would not, however, tell reporters who was backing the process financially.