This week the KC Star and Columbia Daily Tribune editorial boards officially announced their endorsement against Amendment 3, which would inundate Missouri courtrooms with politics. The two papers join Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Committee (MFICC) in the fight to preserve Missouri’s current Nonpartisan Court Plan.
The Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan, which was approved by voters more than 70 years ago, selects judges based on merit and has become a national model for keeping politics out of the judicial selection process.
“The Missouri Plan is designed to inject a fair degree of independent input into judicial selection while still giving the governor a fair degree of final control,” wrote the Columbia Daily Tribune. “It need not be changed. Vote “no” on Amendment 3.”
Amendment 3, which will appear on the November ballot in Missouri, removes the nonpartisan and nonpolitical elements of the current plan by giving Missouri governors the power to handpick a majority of the commission that selects appellate nominees.
The two papers are urging voters to consider the ramifications of allowing politicians to influence Missouri courts.
“Voters should show their support for integrity on the bench by rejecting Amendment 3,” wrote the KC Star. “And they should let it be known that Missouri’s courts are not for sale.”
MFICC is a group of retired judges, business leaders and community leaders that are educating voters this fall on why putting politicians in charge of Missouri’s judicial selection process is dangerous because it brings partisan politics into the one branch of government where it has been held at bay. To learn more about MFICC, please visit www.mofaircourts.com.
“Our selection system focuses on talent and intelligence and judicial temperament, not ideology, and no one has the ability to buy their way into the room where judicial candidates are screened,” said Skip Walther, MFICC Treasurer and former President of the Missouri Bar. “If we abandon our current merit-based selection system and replace it with one where the governor has the power to handpick our judges, just think how much money will roll in from those partisans with a specific candidate and agenda in mind.”
The Honorary Co-Chairs of Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Committee are former Missouri Supreme Court judges William Ray Price, Jr., Ronnie L. White, John C. Holstein,Ann K. Covington, Michael A. Wolff and Edward D. “Chip” Robertson, Jr.
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