judgesonmerit.org

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Kansas’ state Senate has defeated legislation that would have changed the state’s system for selecting appellate judges from a merit selection system with a nominating commission to a system of direct appointment by the governor and senate confirmation. By a vote of 22-17, a bipartisan coalition of senators defeated Senate Bill 83, which had passed through Kansas’s House of Representatives last year at the urging of special interest groups and supporters of Gov. Sam Brownback.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Democrat, had argued that “[t]his motion is an egregious effort to politicize judicial appointments” and that “[t]he judiciary as an independent and co-equal branch of government was designed to provide stability against the political winds.” With no lack of support from across the aisle in the Republican-controlled Senate, Hensley’s defense of merit selection prevailed. We applaud the resolution of the Kansas state Senate to preserve merit selection, a system we feel is well-suited to separating politics from our justice system and maintaining checks and balances between branches of government. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee will hold a merit selection hearing of its own on March 1 in Philadelphia to discuss the proposed adoption of the system in Pennsylvania.

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