NEWS CLIPS

Politicians serve special interests

"Our Voice: Let sun shine on Missouri Plan," Aug. 15.

Nicely done editorial. "... too many lawmakers only want to use the Sunshine Law when it serves their political purposes." Kinda like "too many lawmakers and the special interests who bankroll them only want to criticize Missouri’s "Non-Partisan Court Plan" when they do not get the nominees who will favor those same special interests in our courts of law."

Given the tumultuous, politically motivated attacks and counterattacks since the Appellate Judicial Commission did its constitutional duty by sending the governor three well qualified candidates for his appointment to our Supreme Court, is anyone else starting to see why we don’t want to give rank, partisan, lifetime, special interest politicians the unfettered ability to hand the third, independent branch of our government — the judiciary — to the same politicians and special interests who now control the other two branches? I say thank God for the Constitution’s separation of powers, and for the Appellate Judicial Commission for keeping it a reality.

Surely there are some ways in which the operation of the current "Non-Partisan Court Plan" might be made more understandable and transparent to the public, but the fact remains that it truly has become the national model for the majority of states who seek to maintain the independence of their judiciaries from the exclusive control of one or both of the other independent branches of government. Or, as Thomas Jefferson and the Founders of our nation so appropriately complained about King George in our Declaration of independence: "For the King has made judges dependent upon his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries." (Number 9 in the list of 27 grievances against the King ... ) Are the governor’s and his corporate special interests’ efforts to control our judiciary also starting to sound familiar?

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Mike Holzknecht Former Hickory County prosecuting attorney, Stockton

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