If a single party controls the governorship and both legislative chambers, it loses incentive to act in a bipartisan manner. AN UPSHOT of the new power granted to Brownback is zero public input, zero transparency for how the selection will be made, and total control by a select few.
That’s the deduction of the American Judicature Society, which studies open government, and recently commented on the way Kansas will now appoint its appellate judges.
State Democrats, especially, are up in arms over Gov. Brownback’s decision to not only personally appoint nominees to the state Court of Appeals, but also to keep their names secret until they are up for Senate confirmation.
This usurpation of power should have every Kansan concerned.
For the last 32 years, nominees to the appellate court were made by consensus of a nonpartisan panel. Members of the panel represented both the Democrat and Republican party. Of the nine panel members, four were lay members appointed by the governor. Another four were attorneys appointed by their peers in each of the state’s Congressional districts. The chair was elected by attorneys statewide.
The process proved effective because the attorneys, especially, tended to be harshest in judging their peers.
The panel disclosed applicants’ names and gave their biographies and, in recent years, interviewed them in a public format.
In other words, they bent over backward to ensure the public had every opportunity to know who would be sitting on the bench.
This open-style of government was done away with by the state legislature this spring. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff King, R-Independence, was quick to give his seal of approval.
It was one of many decisions this year that bore evidence King has “drunk the tea” of the ultra-conservative movement.
Though he often speaks like a moderate — “I think openness is preferred” — King has voted as an ultra-conservative. This session King voted for banning federal enforcement of firearm regulations, to prohibit local government from having to pay union-level wages, to give health clubs a property tax exemption, to lower income tax rates, to require drug testing for welfare recipients, to give the secretary of state power to prosecute election fraud cases, and egregious of all, considering he comes from a family of teachers, to give the legislature sole authority to decide school funding.
King, in fact, also voted to give the governor full authority in appointing judges to the Supreme Court. That motion failed to get the necessary two-thirds approval in the House, but did so readily in the Senate.
That the Senate has to approve Brownback’s nominee to the Court of Appeals is of little solace knowing that Republicans have a 32-8 majority and are increasingly of the same mindset as our ultraconservative governor.
That’s a sure recipe for cronyism. And we’re letting it happen.
— Susan Lynn