NEWS CLIPS

Disciples of the law

By rights, Thursday should have been a good day for 53-year-old Patricia A. Breckenridge of Nevada, Mo. After eight years as an associate circuit court judge in Vernon County and 17 years as a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals, she found herself as the only Republican on a list of three names submitted to Republican Gov. Matt Blunt for appointment to the Supreme Court of the state of Missouri.

Given that Mr. Blunt frequently has complained about the so-called judicial activism of a Supreme Court that he thinks tilts decidedly leftward, Judge Breckenridge had every reason to think she was a mortal lock.

Then along came the right-wing chorus of the newly minted Adam Smith Foundation of Jefferson City, set up by a cadre of the governor’s young political operatives, who proceeded to blast Ms. Breckenridge and the other two judicial nominees as "blatantly liberal" and an "insult to Missourians."

The governor promised due consideration of the names on the list, but he has made no secret of his desire to change in Missouri’s Non-Partisan Courts plan, which has served the state well for 67 years — helping keep political hacks off the Supreme Court, the state’s appeals courts and our big-city circuit courts.
Judge Breckenridge — who in 1982, 1986 and 1990 ran as a Republican for the 28th circuit court bench in Vernon County — was named to the Western District Court of Appeals by a Republican governor, John Ashcroft. She is no reasonable person’s idea of a liberal. Yet suddenly Judge Breckenridge finds herself labeled Not Republican Enough.

This is the sort of craven partisanship that Missourians would have to get used to if the Adam Smithies, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other opponents of the Non-Partisan Courts Plan have their way. During this year’s legislative session, they tried but failed to get lawmakers to pass a resolution submitting changes in the plan to voters. They have promised to be back next year. The idea is not so much to get non-activist judges on the bench but to get judges who will be activists for these groups’ special interests.

As we’ve noted before, Missourians rejected this kind of cronyism in 1940 when they took judicial selection away from Tom Pendergast, Missouri’s Democratic political boss. Under the Missouri Plan, special judicial commissions interview applicants for judgeships on the basis of scholarship, judicial temperament and experience. The governor usually gets someone from his own party; he just doesn’t get a hack from his own party.

Responsible leaders among the judiciary and both political parties have stepped forward to defend the Missouri Plan. The latest is former Supreme Court Chief Judge Edward "Chip" Robertson Jr., who was chief of staff for Gov. Ashcroft before being appointed to the Supreme Court — again, nobody’s idea of a liberal. His political background notwithstanding, he realizes that the bench is no place for politics.

Now part of a new group called Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts, Mr. Robertson said all three finalists on the list sent to Mr. Blunt — Nannette Baker of the Eastern District Court of Appeals and Ms. Breckenridge and Ronald R. Holliger of the Western District Court of Appeals — are "disciples of the law, not of politics and not of policy."

Which is as it should be.