In November, voters in Greene County, which encompasses most of metropolitan Springfield, Mo., decided to abandon the practice of electing circuit court judges in partisan elections. County voters opted to join the state’s Non-Partisan Merit Selection Court Plan, known as the Missouri Plan.

The plan ensures that state Supreme Court and appeals court judges are chosen by merit, not politics, along with circuit judges in the state’s urban counties. Each judicial circuit has an independent five-member nominating commission, which then hands a list of three nominees to the governor.

But last week, outgoing Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt named an active opponent of the Missouri Plan as a member of Greene County’s new judicial nominating commission. He also named John Gentry, another opponent of the Missouri Plan, to the seven-member panel that selects candidates for the Supreme Court and courts of appeals.

Mr. Blunt named Sally Hargis, vice president of Springfield’s Coca-Cola bottling company, to one of the two spots on the commission reserved for lay members. By law, the remaining three members of the panel are lawyers elected by the Missouri Bar and the chief judge of the district court of appeals. Ms. Hargis’ company contributed $2,500 toward the campaign to defeat the initiative, and she persists in her opposition to the work she has been appointed to perform.

“Missourians and Greene Countians should be able to select their judges,” she told the News-Leader.

County voters wisely decided they want to handle judicial selection differently. Ms. Hargis should talk with members of the commissions that have been selecting trial judges in the St. Louis region for more than 50 years.

She might be impressed with seriousness of the process here. It begins with commission members taking a solemn oath to act with independence and nominate candidates based on their qualifications for judicial office.

Like a jury, the commission members decide for themselves who will chair their meetings; there’s no presumption that the judge or a lawyer presides.

Lay members who worry that deliberations may be dominated by the lawyers or judges would do well to visit with the appellate court judges who have participated in the process. They speak glowingly about how judges, lawyers and lay people work collegially and productively, reaching consensus on candidates an overwhelming majority of the time.

And as for public input, the circuit court judges must periodically stand for retention.

The new Greene County commission also might want to talk to experienced lay commission members here.

Take Stephen F. Doss, for example. He’s a Republican businessman who is serving for the second time on the selection commission for the St. Louis Circuit Court. He was appointed to a four-year term in the 1980s by then-Gov. John Ashcroft. Mr. Blunt selected Mr. Doss last year.

Mr. Doss says he is a true believer in direct democracy, but he has come to believe that the Missouri Plan’s merit selection process works better in choosing judges.

He considers the process to be genuinely non-partisan. He notes that many judges appointed to the circuit court bench by the governor of one party later have been promoted to appellate judgeships by a governor of another party.

He says that all commission members have the opportunity to be full and equal participants in the process.

“When people get in that room, they try to be good citizens,” he said.

With the addition of Greene County, judges in six of the state’s 45 judicial circuits now are chosen by merit, not politics. Six down; 39 to go.

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(The American Judicature Society offers online the second edition of its Handbook for Judicial Nominating Commissioners)