Critics of Missouri’s nationally recognized merit system for selecting judges have failed to get enough valid signatures to put the issue before voters this fall.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan announced in a press release on Tuesday that the initiative petition tied to repealing Missouri’s merit system was not certified for the November ballot.

“This cynical attempt to inject special interests into Missouri’s courtrooms was overwhelmingly rejected by the voters,” said Ken Morley, an adviser to the Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund, which fought the petition effort.

“This monumental failure by those wishing to politicize our courts sends a strong message that Missourians want to keep our system of justice fair and impartial.”

ShowMe Better Courts wanted to scrap the state’s  judicial appointment system and replace it with competitive partisan elections. The group’s executive director, James Harris, said Tuesday, “We’re very disappointed that Lincoln Strategies failed to collect the requisite number of signatures, but we will continue moving forward and will re-submit the petition in November.”

Harris was referring to a group hired to collect signatures in support of the initiative.

The outcome of Missouri’s heated showdown did not come as a surprise. In May, an analysis of the signatures was carried out by Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts. It concluded the signatures fell short of the minimums required by law (see Gavel Grab). Fair and Impartial Courts is a partner of Justice at Stake.

In the spring, ShowMe Better Courts contended on its website that elections of judges put “the people – not special interest groups or elite legal industry associations – in charge of Missouri’s judiciary.”

The website of Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund stated, “As hard-working Missourians, we need to support a legal system that is not influenced by political pressure or special interests. Over the last 70 years, Missouri has become the model for a fair and impartial court system.”

The secretary of state’s announcement said the merit repeal  petition “had a sufficient number of valid signatures in one of the six required Congressional Districts,” and “valid signatures from registered voters equal to eight (8) percent of the total votes cast in the 2008 governor’s election from six of the state’s nine congressional districts must be submitted.”

According to the Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund, the proposed initiative petition was rejected in a bipartisan manner, with some of the most conservative and liberal congressional districts dismissing the proposed constitutional amendment.

Missouri was the first state to adopt merit selection of judges, in 1940. You can learn more about merit selection systems, which combine appointment and retention (up-or-down) elections, from Justice at Stake’s issues page on the topic.

Who knew petition drives could be so much fun?

Here are some of the highlights from the Missouri Secretary of State’s announcement about which efforts gathered enough signature to qualify for the statewide ballot in November:

—The “Buck Stops Here” Award (not) goes to James Harris, executive director of ShowMe Better Courts, for his reaction to the news that his group’s effort to select judges through partisan elections had failed to gain enough valid signatures.

“We are very disappointed that Lincoln Strategies failed to collect the requisite number of signatures, but we will continue moving forward and will resubmit the petition in November,” Harris said in a written statement.

Lincoln Strategy Group is the Arizona firm which Harris hired to gather the requisite number of signatures.

It’s not too hard to imagine Harry Truman ruefully shaking his head.

—The “Grasping at Straws” honor goes to lawyer Chuck Hatfield, representing sponsors of the “Stop Double Taxation” petition drive, aimed at banning transfer taxes on home sales in Missouri. That campaign also failed to gather enough valid signatures, prompting Hatfield to promise legal action.

The lawsuit, he said, will among other things “ask the court to count signatures rejected by the Secretary of State due to petition circulators not being registered with the state.”

But state law requires petition circulators to be registered. So we’re going to have a lawsuit asking the court to tell the state to ignore its own law? Bizarre, but stranger things have happened.

—The “It’s My Money and I’ll Spend it How I Want To” trophy goes to St. Louis multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield. He spent $6.8 million on a successful signature-collecting drive to secure a statewide vote aimed at ultimately getting rid of the earnings taxes in Kansas City and St. Louis.

—The “It Was My Money and I Wish I’d Spent It On Something Else” award is being shared by Joplin roofing supply executive David Humphreys and St. Joseph construction bigwig Stanley Herzog. Humphrey gave $475,000 to Harris’s unsuccessful effort to elect judges; Herzog chipped in with $275,000. The busted effort also benefited from nearly $1 million given by groups with vague names and anonymous contributors.

—The “Slippery Slope” honor goes to Karen Strange of the Missouri Federation of Animal Owners, for her ominous prediction about what might happen if Missouri voters approve a statewide petition regulating dog breeding operations. Strange is especially concerned about a provision limiting breeders to a 50-dog maximum.

“We are voicing concerns about if the government starts restricting the number of animals a dog breeder may have, how long is it going to be before they start restricting everything else, including cattle, hog, poultry production and everything detailed in our lives,” she told St. Louis Public Radio.

—The “Wake Me When It’s Over” prize belongs to Missouri residents. Along with a high-stakes U.S. Senate race and the non-stop campaign ads destined to go along with it, we also face the prospect of three months of unrelenting images of abused puppies and lectures about the foolishness of wanting to keep up basic services in the state’s two largest cities. What did we do to deserve such an honor?

Read more: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/not-my-fault-if-your-petition-drive-failed/#ixzz0vlO3RaSg

U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, is apparently aligning his U.S. Senate bid with the initiative-petition effort to revamp how Missouri selects its judges in the urban areas and on the higher courts, by requiring that they be elected, not appointed.

And with the initiative-petitions’ success in doubt, Blunt’s campaign is taking aim at the person who may well decide whether that judicial measure ends up on the Nov. 2 ballot: Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who also happens to be the best-known Democrat running for the U.S. Senate.

Blunt’s campaign asserted today that “special-interest trial lawyers have been attempting to influence” Carnahan’s decision via $500,000 in campaign donations that he contends her campaign has received from lawyers. (According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics , which tracks campaign donations, Carnahan has received at least $721,834 from lawyers and law firms, compared to $223,543 for Blunt.)

“Robin Carnahan can make all the false assertions she wants about campaign contributions, but what she can’t deny is that she’s taken more than half a million dollars from special interest trial lawyers as she prepares to make a crucial decision on an initiative petition they don’t like,” said Blunt spokesperson Rich Chrismer. “Using Carnahan’s logic, Missourians have every right to question her judgment and whether she can be trusted to make an independent or impartial decision on this issue after taking $500,000 from the personal injury lawyers who don’t want this petition on the ballot.”

Blunt’s accusation is the first salvo of what some already predict will be a barrage of attacks against Carnahan on the subject, in the weeks leading up to her office’s official announcement by Aug. 3 as to whether ShowMe Better Courts submitted enough signatures in its quest to ask Missouri voters to get rid of the 60-year-old system in which urban and higher-court judges are appointed by the governor. The governor now chooses from a list of three nominees assembled by a selection commission made up members of the Missouri Bar and gubernatorial appointees.

Critics of that system included Blunt’s son, former Gov. Matt Blunt, who contended that the lists generally had only liberal candidates for the judgeships. The head of ShowMe Better Courts is former Blunt aide James Harris.

Under ShowMe’s ballot proposal, voters would elect all Missouri judges — even those on the state Supreme Court. Rural judges in the state already are elected.

One of the groups supporting the current process,  Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts, announced several weeks ago that its analysis of the petitions submitted by ShowMe indicated that the group failed to submit enough valid signatures from registered voters in at least six congressional districts, as state law requires. In fact, the Impartial Courts group and allied operatives say ShowMe’s petitions don’t even come close to meeting the requirements for putting its proposal on the ballot.

Harris has maintained that the signature-collection firm, which was paid more than $1 million, has assured him that it did turn in adequate signatures.

In any case, supporters of the current system have been privately predicting since then that ShowMe’s allies would begin attacking Carnahan, and raising questions about her credibility and that of her staff.

But the speculation hadn’t included the congressman, although his spokesman, Rich Chrismer, previously was the spokesman for the congressman’s son, former Gov. Blunt.  Carnahan has taken no public stance on the ballot proposal, citing her office’s role in determining whether the measure actually goes before voters.

The attack against Carnahan also comes as her campaign has continued to hammer Blunt over his donations from oil companies, a tactic that appears to have helped Carnahan cut away most of Blunt’s earlier lead in independent polls. The latest numbers show the two statistically tied.

Even so, Blunt’s attack against Carnahan on the judicial issue could be politically risky, since many prominent Republicans — some of whom have donated to the congressman, or endorsed him — are among the lawyers defending the current judicial selection system and opposing ShowMe’s effort.

Regarding “Missouri’s judicial selection process is in need of reform” (June 1): The Missouri Bar Board of Governors disagrees strongly with James Harris’ dismal and misinformed assessment of Missouri’s court system. So do most Missourians. An analysis by Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund of the petitions submitted to the Missouri secretary of state revealed that the group fell far short of the required number of signatures to earn the initiative a place on the ballot.

If the analysis is confirmed, Missourians should be congratulated for refusing to change a court system that works for all citizens. The risk posed by Mr. Harris’ initiative can’t be overstated. Mr. Harris’ group sought to scrap our merit-based judicial selection system and replace it with partisan elections. Judicial candidates for trial courts in major metro areas would need hundreds of thousands of dollars to mount a campaign. Supreme Court candidates would need millions of dollars. Major corporations, political organizations and private donors could determine who becomes a judge through massive contributions.

The Missouri Bar Board of Governors voted to take all action necessary to support the Non-Partisan Court Plan. The Missouri Bar’s response is not partisan. It does not pit Democrats against Republicans, conservatives against liberals or defense attorneys against plaintiffs’ attorneys. The board consists of a widely diverse group of 45 elected lawyers who represent lawyers across the state. The board is steadfast and unanimous in its belief that the merit-based system brings fair and impartial justice to all Missourians, and it is committed to confronting this threat and any future to secure the integrity of Missouri’s courts.

Skip Walther is President of The Missouri Bar.

Might the Show-Me justice showdown be over before it even gets started?

Not sure, but opponents of the drive to force a statewide vote on Missouri’s judicial selection process say their analysis shows that vote isn’t going to happen.

Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts says it has studied the signatures gathered by ShowMe Better Courts, and predicts the effort to move to partisan election of judges failed to collect the required number of signatures in six of the nine Congressional districts.

Here’s the press release from Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts.

James Harris, who heads up ShowMe Better Courts, released a statement to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch saying, “I reject this as an effort by self-interested ambulance chasers to influence the Secretary of State’s count.”

We won’t know for sure until Aug. 3, which is the deadline for signatures submitted to be counted and verified by local election boards.

But if the opponents are right, some people are going to be pretty frustrated. I’m thinking specifically of Joplin contractor David Humphreys, who has dropped $475,000 into the effort so far.

Read more: http://voices.kansascity.com/node/9141#ixzz0pEgZRo4W

JEFFERSON CITY — Opponents of an attempt to require partisan elections for all Missouri judges said Tuesday that their analysis shows too few signatures were submitted to put the idea before voters.

But plan supporters said the analysis was flawed and called the group behind it “self-interested ambulance-chasers.”

An initiative targeted for the November ballot would do away with Missouri’s nonpartisan system for nominating and appointing judges to appeals courts and urban trial courts. Instead, all judicial candidates would run under party labels, such as Republican or Democrat, as they already do for many trial courts.

Missouri adopted the nominating system in 1940 to minimize the influence of politics in the judiciary. Backers of the current system say partisan elections could make the courts more political, but critics contend the courts remain political and that trial attorneys have too much influence in picking judges.

To get a proposed constitutional amendment on the Missouri ballot, organizers need signatures equal to 8 percent of the votes cast in the 2008 governor’s election from six of Missouri’s nine congressional districts. The deadline for turning in signatures was earlier this month.

Election officials have until Aug. 3 to determine whether the measure qualifies for the ballot.

The Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund, which opposes the proposed ballot measure, used Missouri open-records law to obtain all the signatures submitted for the court petition.

Its analysis concluded that too few signatures were submitted in at least five congressional districts. In a sixth district — one covering the Kansas City area — there could be enough signatures only if nearly all turned in are determined to be valid.

Ken Morley, an adviser for opponents of the proposal, said the lack of signatures indicates Missouri residents do not want to change how judges are picked.

“While we were looking forward to the voters rejecting this proposal at the ballot box in November, the voters decided to do us one better and reject this bad idea during the signature collection process. And they rejected it overwhelmingly,” he said.

The ballot measure was submitted just before the state’s deadline by ShowMe Better Courts. James Harris, a leader for the organization, said in a statement Tuesday that he does not believe opponents’ analysis.

“Based on what the petition company reports, we believe we were able to overcome the trial lawyers’ race-based suppression campaign and frivolous delaying lawsuits to collect the number of signatures necessary to put this before the voters,” Harris said.

Ballot measure supporters have said that those gathering signatures have been subjected to physical intimidation by opponents, who deny the claims. Supporters obtained a temporary restraining order, but the judge later dissolved it.

Harris said earlier this month that more than 250,000 signatures were turned in. Opponents said Tuesday their analysis shows fewer than 200,000 actually were submitted.

Under Missouri’s current judicial system, people interested in becoming judges for certain courts apply to special nominating panels that forward three finalists to the governor, who then appoints one. Voters then decide in periodic retention elections whether to keep that judge in place.

The system is used for the state Supreme Court, three regional appeals courts, and trial courts in the city of St. Louis and Clay, Greene, Jackson, Platte and St. Louis counties.

Jefferson City, MO – Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund today announced that according to an analysis of signatures submitted to the Secretary of State by ShowMe Better Courts, a group proposing a constitutional amendment to dismantle Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court plan, it appears that insufficient signatures were collected to qualify the amendment and send it to the voters.  The review predicts that ShowMe Better Courts fell short of the signature requirement in at least six of nine Congressional Districts.

“Missourians were presented a clear choice between preserving Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court Plan, a model for the nation, or scrapping it in favor of judicial campaigns full of partisanship, politics and negative campaigning.  It appears that Missourians have rejected this proposal to inject politics and partisanship into Missouri’s courtrooms by refusing to even provide sufficient signatures to put this bad idea on the ballot,” said Ken Morley, an advisor to Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund.

In order to qualify a proposed constitutional amendment for the ballot, proponents must submit signatures equaling 8% of the total number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election in at least six of the nine Congressional Districts in Missouri.  The review revealed that despite spending more than $1.5 million on signature collection efforts, ShowMe Better Courts failed to collect sufficient signatures in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Congressional Districts.   An analysis of signatures can be found at http://mofaircourts.com/analysis-of-signatures/.  A copy of all signatures submitted by ShowMe Better Courts was obtained from the Secretary of State’s office through a Sunshine request, and is also available for review at http://mofaircourts.com/petitionanalysis/.

Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund mounted an unprecedented voter education campaign to warn Missourians about this dangerous proposal, including grassroots education activities, online communications, and educational radio advertising.

“Amendment proponents spent an unprecedented amount on signature collection.  To fail to collect sufficient signatures after spending over $1.5 million demonstrates clearly that once Missourians understood the risks presented by this proposal to dismantle Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court Plan, they rejected it out of hand,” said Morley.

Despite claims by ShowMe Better Courts that approximately 250,000 signatures were submitted, a full count of all petitions reveals that less than 200,000 signatures were actually submitted to the Secretary of State.

JEFFERSON CITY — An analysis of the signatures submitted to the Secretary of State’s office by the group seeking to make all judges in Missouri elected fell short of statutory minimums, says a group opposing the effort.

Earlier this month,  a group called ShowMe Better Courts submitted what it said was more than 250,000 signatures in its effort to do away with the state’s method for choosing many of its top judges, the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan. Instead, the group led by lobbyist James Harris would seek to have all judges elected. The group’s efforts have been opposed by a coalition of lawyers, judges and business groups who formed together as the Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund. That group argues that the current plan limits the effect of politics on judicial selection.

The opponents filed a Sunshine Law request to obtain the signature data submitted by Better Courts, and according to their analysis, the issue will not make the November ballot. The Secretary of State has until August to certify whether issues will qualify.

To qualify for the ballot, ShowMe Better Courts would need to collect 8 percent of the number of votes cast in the 2008 gubernatorial election in at least six of nine congressional districts. The group basically ignored three congressional districts in its signature gathering process, meaning only one of the remaining districts would have to fall short to disqualify the issue from the November ballot.

According to the analysis from Missourians for Fair And Impartial Courts — which was obtained by the Political Fix — the ShowMe Better Courts signatures likely were short in both the 7th and 9th congressional district, even if 100 percent of the signatures turned in are considered valid, which is unlikely.

The discrepancy in what ShowMe Better Courts turned in, and what is actually counted by the Secretary of State, could make up for some of the signature short fall. For instance, in Boone County, the ShowMe group said it submitted 1,500 pages of signatures. But, according to the opponents’ Sunshine Law request, the Secretary of State only counted 1,074 pages of signatures.

The dispute between the groups over the signatures has been quite intense and expensive.

Although our attention as a nation is focused on the selection of a new justice to the Supreme Court, another judicial process that is also extremely important is happening across the country: the selection of state court judges. But in too many states, citizens are being shortchanged by the way these judges are chosen.

Each state has its own method of choosing judges, from lifetime appointments to partisan elections. But judges with a lifetime appointment are not accountable to voters. And elected judges are susceptible to influence by political or ideological constituencies.

A better system is one that strikes a balance between lifetime appointment and partisan election by providing for the open, public nomination and appointment of judges, followed in due course by a standardized judicial performance evaluation and, finally, a yes/no vote in which citizens either approve the judge or vote him out. This kind of merit selection system — now used in some form in two-thirds of states — protects the impartiality of the judiciary without sacrificing accountability.

State courts resolve the most important legal matters in our lives, including child custody cases, settlement of estates, business-contract disputes, traffic offenses, drunken-driving charges, most criminal offenses and most foreclosures. More than 100 million cases are filed in state courts each year.

When you enter one of these courtrooms, the last thing you want to worry about is whether the judge is more accountable to a campaign contributor or an ideological group than to the law.

In our system, the judiciary, unlike the legislative and the executive branches, is supposed to answer only to the law and the Constitution. Courts are supposed to be the one safe place where every citizen can receive a fair hearing.

In a merit selection system, a nonpartisan nominating commission interviews and investigates applicants for judicial vacancies, and ultimately recommends a few candidates to the governor. The governor appoints one from the list. Regular “retention” elections are held to allow voters to decide whether to keep the judge in office.

There are those who assert that this system benefits legal insiders, because lawyers will inevitably dominate the nominating commissions, which would hold their meetings in secret. But to the extent that this could be a real problem, Arizona has already demonstrated how to avoid it. In that state, nominating commissions are dominated by non-lawyers, and their meetings are open. Candidates’ applications are available online, and the public is invited to comment.

Another argument against this system is that it deprives voters of the chance to choose their judges. But the truth is, in those states that elect judges, candidates often run unopposed, so voters are left with no options, and little information about the people who are on the ballot. In a system where judges are evaluated before they are put on the ballot, voters can make their decisions more knowledgeably — with relevant information about the judges’ performance on the bench.

This year, 16 states will hold contested elections for seats on their highest courts, and candidates will raise and spend millions of dollars for their campaigns. In 2008 alone, nearly $20 million was spent on TV advertising in contested elections for 26 state supreme court seats.

Some states where judges are still elected are considering constitutional changes to a merit selection system. The Minnesota Legislature has considered asking voters to weigh in on such a change, and may do so again next year. And in Nevada (a state ranked eighth in campaign spending on judgeships), two legislators — the Senate minority leader, William Raggio, a Republican, and Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, a Democrat — pushed through a ballot question that citizens will vote on this November on whether to institute a merit selection system for judges.

We should cheer Minnesota and Nevada as they pursue impartial courts and create for their citizens that one safe place. Other states should soon follow suit.

Sandra Day O’Connor was a Supreme Court justice from 1981 to 2006.

It now appears that we will have a chance to vote on that question in November. After receiving $675,000 from two Missouri businessmen-David Humphreys and Stan Herzog-and $975,000 in secret donations, James Harris and Show Me Better Courts filed signature petitions with the secretary of state to place an initiative measure on the ballot in November that would end the Missouri Plan in favor of partisan judicial elections statewide.

With merit selection, our judges are accountable to the Constitution and law, not public opinion. We have a judiciary free from scandal and corruption because we select our appellate and metropolitan judges based on integrity, intelligence, and experience, but this was not always true.

In the 1930s, Missouri judges were handpicked by Tom Pendergast, the head of the corrupt political machine in Kansas City. Pendergast wanted judges who would rule as he wished. If they failed in that regard, he replaced them. Elections didn’t work because Pendergast committed widespread voter fraud, but our citizens voted in 1940 to abandon elections and instead adopt the country’s very first merit selection system for judges.

If Humphreys and Herzog have their way, we will ask our judges to become politicians, raise campaign contributions and wage political campaigns. This subject has commanded a fair amount of my time in the last few years, and the question is often presented: We elect other government officials, why not our judges? After all, we live in a democracy. It is a simple question but the answer goes to the heart of our justice system.

The answer lies in the difference between what politicians do and what judges do. Judges are to be honest, impartial and competent and decide cases based on the law and the facts of the case. They are not to decide cases based on their political beliefs or their own self-interest. They are supposed to ignore possible criticism and the identities of the litigants or their attorneys.

Politicians are free to follow their political ambitions, to serve interest groups and show kindness to their campaign contributors. Politicians are expected to behave based upon their self-interest and their political ideology. This is the essence of politics but it is also the antithesis of judicial behavior.

Of course, many of our trial judges are still elected, but almost exclusively in counties where voters know them or know about them. Winning candidates are usually voted into office based on their legal abilities, not their political skills. Our elected judges have not been forced to raise big money or launch negative attacks on their opponents because the voters are already familiar with them.

While elected judges can demonstrate the highest judicial ideals, they can face challenges and obstacles that appointed judges do not. How difficult is it for an elected judge to ignore sizable campaign contributions donated by a litigant or attorney? In Texas, a recent poll disclosed that half of their judges admit that campaign contributions had a significant effect on their decisions. How difficult is it – in an election year – for an elected judge to make a decision on the law and the facts rather than community sentiment?  We ask our elected judges to set aside political aspirations and dispense justice impartially, and those who are able to do so are special public servants, but can we reasonably expect perfection?  Our citizens deserve fair and impartial justice more than most of the time.

Fortunately, our elected trial judges seldom face significant political pressure because they usually do not engage in expensive campaigns. Appellate and metropolitan judicial candidates will not have this luxury, and if forced to wage political campaigns, these candidates will spend millions of dollars to launch attack ads that only demean the opposition. Then, once in office, they will inevitably be confronted with a case involving a campaign contributor, and recusal is uncertain.

In 1940, we found a way to protect the integrity of our courts from human shortcomings by adopting the Missouri Plan, thus ending the cronyism and corruption that tarnished our court system in the early part of the 20th century. If we return to an elective system, our judges will return to the political hellhole that was Missouri over 70 years ago, where accountability was not to the Constitution, or even the public, but to a small group of powerful men with enough money to have their way.

Skip Walther is president of The Missouri Bar.