NEWS CLIPS

Missouri Court Plan

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt and the conservative-backed Adam Smith Foundation, in their quest to find an issue to invigorate the Republican base in advance of the 2008 governor’s race, continue to attack the Missouri Court Plan. The latest criticism assails the lack of “transparency” in the judicial selection process (9/4, Business, Dan Margolies column, “Many opinions on judgeships").

What could be less transparent than selecting the state’s appellate court judges the same way the governor has chosen his friends and supporters to run the state’s license fee agent offices?

Overturning the Missouri Court Plan, which has served this state well for more than 65 years, will result in appellate judges being selected based not on their legal knowledge and experience, but rather on whom they know and how much they have contributed to the governor’s political party. Isn’t that why we adopted the plan in the first place?

Tom Grimaldi
Kansas City

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