“Tweaking” judicial selection will return hacks to the bench
T.J."Boss Tom" Pendergast used to decide who'd become a judge in Missouri. Should we bring back those golden days? (Photo © The State Historical Society of Missouri)
The Missouri Legislature once again is considering fixing something that isn’t broken: the state’s nonpartisan plan for selecting judges. This should alarm everyone concerned with keeping political hacks — of whatever party — from putting on a black robe.
Last year, the Missouri House killed a “reform” (it was “reform” in same way that a house fire is home repair) effort led by Rep. Stan Cox, R-Sedalia. Mr. Cox is back again this year with House Joint Resolution 10, which would re-politicize the judicial selection process. A similar resolution has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Jim Lembke, R-Lemay. Either measure, if passed by both the House and Senate, would require approval by voters to become law.
The measures are being touted as “tweaks” to the Missouri nonpartisan court plan, adopted by voters in 1940 in reaction to the political hacks placed on the bench by Kansas City’s notorious Pendergast political machine.
Under the Missouri Plan, which has been adopted by other states, nonpartisan selection commissions send the governor three names for vacant seats on the state Supreme Court, appellate courts and in judicial circuits in the state’s metropolitan areas. In rural Missouri, judges still are elected in partisan elections.
Mr. Cox and Mr. Lembke would change the membership criteria for judicial selection commissions, reducing the current influence of the Missouri Bar. A new governor could fire all the selection commissioners as soon as he took office. The commissioners would be subject to confirmation by the state Senate. The panels would send the governor a list of five potential judges, instead of three. If the governor wasn’t happy with the list, he could demand a new list of five. If he still wasn’t happy, the lieutenant governor would get to make the appointment. If the lieutenant governor wasn’t happy, the commission itself would make the appointment.
What it boils down to is this: It increases the likelihood that big money will decide who gets to be a judge. Just like in Illinois. And we’ve seen how well that works.
The people behind the effort are wealthy conservative ideologues and their minions. Among the ideologues are Ethelmae Humphreys and her son, David Humphreys, of Joplin, heirs to a roofing products fortune, who put more than $80,000 into Mr. Lembke’s Senate bid last fall, and real estate magnate Howie Rich of New York, who underwrote the trashing of Cole County Circuit Court Judge Tom Brown in 2006. Also involved: the Federalist Society, a Washington-based conservative legal action group.
There’s big money on the other side, too. The Missouri Bar elects three members to the appellate selection commission and two members to each of the circuit court selection commissions. Plaintiffs attorneys tend to be far more engaged in bar elections than defense or corporate attorneys.
Indeed, in Illinois, trial attorneys contribute huge amounts of money in judicial elections. If Mr. Lembke or Mr. Cox’s proposals became law, the plaintiffs bar in Missouri could gain even more influence. Rather than see the current system “tweaked,” defense and corporate attorneys should become more engaged in the current process.
Selection commissioners — both lawyers and citizen members alike — say the process is fair. Judicial nominees tend to share the general political philosophies of whoever is governor, but they are highly qualified to be jurists. That wouldn’t be the case if partisan politics played a bigger role.
In fact, a study published last year by the Show-Me Institute in Clayton, funded by — of all people — conservative activist Rex Sinquefield — concluded that “states using Missouri’s current system, on average, rank significantly higher than states using partisan elections, nonpartisan elections, and gubernatorial appointment with council approval alone…. Based on our analysis, Missouri’s current system is far superior to several of the alternatives.”
These “tweaks” are to the judicial selection as was “deregulation” was to the banking and mortgage industries.
Beware of wolves in sheeps’ clothing.
And letting lawyers pick judges are to the hen house like the Fox is to the farmer.
So if lawyers pick judges, the lawyers are the foxes and the judges are the farmers? That’s odd since judges are lawyers, so that means the judges are also foxes. Did you buy that analogy from Glenda Beck?
This is a proven system that has worked for almost 70 years. The other system, political in nature, has been shown to be just that, a political system.
Take a look at some of the recent, exemplary judicial races in Illinois if you need an example of what is wrong with electing judges. You don’t elect the best judge, you elected the best politician.
The analogy was meant to answer the previous comment. I am not sure who Glenda Beck is.
Requiring even a percentage of the selectors of these judges to be lawyers is not different than a literary test to vote. Requiring a particular education creates a special class which violates the equal protection clause. Did I say I wanted to elect the judges? Please show me in the 16 words in my sentences where it says that? We elect representatives to conduct our business. They should be involved in the process, not just lawyers. Ceding control of one-third of our government to such a small group is wrong and creates a system worse than politics.
I did not say that you proposed elections in your response. I referred to it as “the other system” which in Missouri is the election of judges. That is the other way we determine judges in Missouri.
It is well established in this country that judges are not elected by the people. Federal judges are appointed by the President, at the suggestion of a senator, and approved by the Senate after a hearing. What Missouri did was actually to open up such a process and reducing the “political” influence. That is not to say that it eliminated politics, but it did reduce the it.
In fact, if not for a constitutional amendment U. S. Senators would not be elected by the public either, but selected by the state legislatures. So there is another example of how the election of government officials were not always selected by a popular vote.
Here’s a link
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Direct_Election_Senators.html
But my point is not to debate you, but to indicate that the history of the non-partisan judicial selection process in Missouri has been successful in reducing partisan politics and that has been a good thing since it does not require the judiciary to pander for votes.
And if you don’t like the judges there is a way to remove them spelled out in the court plan. No more difficult than removing elected judges from office.
Sorry about the grammatical errors in the previous post.
Federal judges are not selected by a panel of lawyers. They are selected by an elected President and confirmed by elected Senators.
Thank you jjk for pointing out what I said in the second paragraph of my third response. I agree with you.
It also points out that the Missouri Plan reduces partisan politics even beyond the Federal system because you do not have partisan officials recommending who should be a judge. The Missouri Plan does not eliminate politics, but reduces partisan politics significantly, although the Governor, still decides who will be the judge.
If truth be known the only reason this issue has surfaced is because of partisan politicians, that is a Republican Governor and his minions, who did not like the fact that they could not extend their politics further in to the judiciary. That was the genesis of this debate, and it continues to be the reason the water is being carried for retired Governor Blunt. Those opposed to the Missouri Plan want more partisan politics injected into the judiciary.