House gives preliminary OK to judicial selection changes

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Voters would be asked to change how the state's judges are picked under a proposed constitutional amendment given preliminary approval by the House on Monday.

Several, mostly Republican, critics of the state's court selection plan have grown increasingly vocal in recent years. They argue the current selection method is secretive and unaccountable to the public.

Judges for the state Supreme Court, three appeals courts and trial courts in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas currently are nominated by selection committees. Those committees are composed of a judge, lawyers chosen by the Missouri Bar and citizens nominated by the governor. The panels submit three potential nominees to the governor, who picks one.

"The Missouri Plan is not designed to abrogate checks and balances, which is what it has done," said sponsoring Rep. Stanley Cox, R-Sedalia.

Cox's proposal would require members on the nominating panels to be confirmed by the Senate, remove judges from the panels, and increase the number of nonlawyer members. It also increases from three to five the number of nominees forwarded to the governor.

The proposed amendment would require the nominating committees to hold open meetings and require the list of applicants for judicial openings to be posted to the state Supreme Court's Web site. But closed nominating panel sessions would be allowed to interview candidates and to deliberate over which names to forward to the governor.

The proposed amendment was given first-round approval 80-63 but needs another House vote before moving to the Senate. It also will need to gain two more supporters because any legislation needs 82 votes to clear the House.

House Democrats called the proposed amendment "malarkey" and an attempt to change a process that is working.

"It's another opportunity to suggest that we should superimpose the will of politicians and hacks and political appointees over a separate branch of government," said Rep. Jake Zimmerman, D-Olivette. "It's another opportunity to thumb it in the nose of lawyers, another opportunity to thumb it in the nose of judges."

The controversy over judicial nominees heated up last year when state Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White announced he planned to step down.

When Gov. Matt Blunt appointed Judge Patricia Breckenridge to the Supreme Court, he criticized the secretive process used by the nominating panel.

That prompted a Senate committee to ask Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith to explain Missouri's system for selecting judges. Stith earlier this year said during an annual speech to lawmakers that the judicial selection committees would continue deliberating secretly but would post the time and date of meetings and publicize the applications of the three finalists forwarded to the governor.

St. Louis Rep. Juanita Head Walton, one of the few Democrats who support changing how judges are selected, said the current system has left minorities underrepresented on the nominating committees. She said increasing the number of nonlawyer members and requiring Senate confirmation would create pressure to diversify the panels.

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Judge selection is HJR49

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