Guest Column: Choosing judges on merit protects justice in Missouri

Special interests are trying to discredit Missouri’s judges, weaken the courts and make judges beholden to politicians.

If that statement sounds like an alarm, that’s because the situation is alarming. In Missouri, our courts are under attack, and justice is at stake.

Let’s clear up something from the start. Missouri judges have a well-deserved reputation for being fair and knowledgeable. They do not make up the law; they interpret it and apply it. In the process, they safeguard our rights and create a stable, predictable legal environment upon which businesses, families and individuals can rely.

An integral part of Missouri’s court system is our nationally renowned method of selecting judges, based on merit. This system, Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court Plan, has served our state for almost three-quarters of a century.

It is the least political way of providing our courts with quality judges, and it gives voters the final say. As the saying goes, “It isn’t broken, and it sure doesn’t need fixing.”

The Board of Governors of The Missouri Bar represents the state’s 28,000 lawyers. The board is a strong supporter of the Non-Partisan Court Plan because the lawyers on the board and their constituents have firsthand knowledge of our court system and the quality of the judges who have been appointed under the plan.

If there were something wrong with Missouri courts, lawyers would be the first to know and the first to raise a red flag. But there is nothing wrong with the courts and nothing wrong with the Non-Partisan Court Plan.

The more you know about the Non-Partisan Court Plan, the more you appreciate its role in keeping politics at a minimum in the selection of judges, so that the focus can be on the quality of candidates – their legal knowledge, skills and character.

Lawyers are not the only Missourians who are supporting our courts against the excesses of politics.

Each day, more and more community, civic and professional groups are joining coalitions to protect Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court Plan from special interests and political factions.

Changing the way judges are selected will only work if the public believes that something is wrong with Missouri’s judges and justice system.

A proposed Missouri constitutional amendment that is being considered in the state legislature is an attempt to convince the public that something is wrong with our state judges. The proposal, House Joint Resolution 41, seems harmless. It merely states that judges shall not have the right to levy taxes.

This is an unneeded amendment – nothing more or less than an attempt to convey a false impression that Missourians need to be protected from overreaching state judges. The Missouri Constitution clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of the three branches of government. Everyone who can remember their eighth grade civics class knows that the power to levy taxes belongs to the legislature. At no time since Missouri became a state in 1821 – that’s 187 years ago – has a state judge ever tried to violate our constitution by levying a tax.

Why a constitutional amendment? Why now?

The proposal addresses a problem that does not and cannot exist. Even if it fails in the legislature, or should it end up on the ballot in the November election, it can succeed in sowing distrust of Missouri’s courts and judges.

The people of our state want – and deserve – judges who are not beholden to politicians or other special interests. Missouri voters adopted a non-partisan plan for selection of some Missouri judges in 1940, and this method of judicial selection – known nationwide as “the Missouri Plan” – has been adopted, in some form or another, in more than 30 states.

The list of groups supporting the existing system of judicial selection is both well-known and impressive.

It includes a wide range of business, religious, educational, community and legal organizations that have joined a broad-based coalition known as Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts. This group has dedicated itself to keeping Missouri’s courts free from attacks by politicians and special-interest groups and preserving the Missouri Plan.

Also helping this effort is The Missouri Bar, which for nearly 40 years has made public education about the justice system a key component of its operations. The state bar has a nationally-recognized program of citizenship education activities designed to improve civic understanding and participation among young people within the state’s schools. In addition, The Missouri Bar makes a wide variety of educational materials available to adults through its public information efforts. These are also available on the bar’s Web site, www.mobar.org.

In contrast to groups that would undermine our judicial system in the guise of making government more accountable, The Missouri Bar has always recognized that civic understanding is the most powerful tool in ensuring that the will of the people is truly the supreme law of our state.

Charlie Harris Jr. is president of The Missouri Bar and a partner in the firm of Seyferth Blumenthal & Harris LLC in Kansas City. He may be reached at charlie@sbhlaw.com.[[In-content Ad]]