NEWS CLIPS

Voters Can Stop Judicial Attack

The Missouri judiciary is under attack on all sides by partisan politicians who want to consolidate their power.

It’s time that voters see through their ruse.

Led by Gov. Matt Blunt, Senate President Pro Tem Sen. Mike Gibbons and House Speaker Rod Jetton, all Republicans, members of the majority party in the state’s capital city aren’t satisfied with controlling the governor’s mansion and both houses of the General Assembly. Through a series of House joint resolutions, they want to change the Missouri Constitution so they also control the judicial branch.

We suggest they go to law school instead.

Sadly, Gibbons has already been there. Perhaps his alma mater might want to consider a referendum on his fitness as an attorney.

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed by a 5-3 vote HJR 1, which would take away judges’ ability to order tax increases.

"Judges who are appointed do not and should not have the ability to raise our taxes," Jetton says in praising the passage of a bill already approved by the House. Jetton’s right, of course, and that’s what makes HJR1 so darned silly -- and downright dangerous.

Missouri’s Constitution is clear: The power to raise taxes is invested purely in the General Assembly. Judges already don’t have that power, nor have they used it. While Blunt, Gibbons and Jetton would like to scream "activist judges" from the highest mountain in order to rally their voting base for the November 2008 election -- when HJR 1 would appear on the ballot -- they can’t point to a single case where such judicial activism has occurred. Worse yet, they ignore the advice of numerous legal scholars, including former Supreme Court Justice Chip Robertson, who say the passage of this bill could have devastating unintended consequences.

In coming weeks, for instance, many Greene County residents will be receiving their new property tax assessments, and the value of many properties has skyrocketed. Some of those assessments will be challenged in court. Legal scholars in Missouri fear that HJR1 could tie local judges’ hands as they hear such disputes. Further, if HJR1 passes, it will merely push some tax disputes to federal courts, making the legal battles more expensive and taking decisions out of the hands of judges who must stand for election in front of Missouri voters. Indeed, that’s the lesson of HJR1. Its backers want to take power away from you, the voters of Missouri.

Blunt, Gibbons and Jetton show incredible disrespect for Missouri’s judges when they allege with no evidence that the state’s judges are willing to ignore the Constitution. Indeed, it is the triumvirate of activist legislators -- sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves -- who have proven time and time again that they are willing to ignore the Constitution if it serves their purposes.

The tragedy is that the attack on Missouri’s judges doesn’t end there. Three bills have been filed, HJR 31, 33 and 34, which would get rid of the nonpartisan and nationally respected Missouri Plan for choosing judges. In various forms, lawmakers want to again invest all of the government’s power in the governor’s office and the General Assembly, ignoring our Constitution’s separation of powers and the wisdom of past leaders -- Democrats and Republicans -- who devised a system in which the governor chooses judicial appointments from a list of finalists pared down by bipartisan legal experts.

Voters don’t need much more evidence than the current scandal over the White House’s involvement in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys to see the danger of one branch of government wielding too much influence over another.

Missouri’s judicial system isn’t broken. Blunt, Gibbons and Jetton can’t point to any problems with judicial decisions related to taxes. They’re grasping for more power and they want to take it not just from judges, but from the very people who elect all three branches of government.

Don’t let them do it.