Litigation

Too Few Signatures in MO Merit Battle?

By Peter Hardin

Could foes of Missouri’s merit system for selecting judges have failed to clear a crucial hurdle in order to put the issue before voters?

A group defending the nationally recognized merit system asserted that is the case, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch blog post. Not so, replied a leader pressing for a constitutional amendment, who assailed “self-interested ambulance chasers.”

Missouri’s secretary of state has not issued any ruling yet.

ShowMe Better Courts wants to scrap the state’s  judicial appointment system and replace it with competitive partisan elections. It recently said it had submitted 250,000 petition signatures to put the issue on the ballot in November.

Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts, which defends the merit system for appointing many of Missouri’s top judges, did an analysis of the signatures and said in a statement Wednesday that they fell short of the minimums required by law.

“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 adviser to Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund.

The group made its analysis of the signatures, based on individual congressional districts, available online. It also said fewer than 200,000 signatures were actually submitted to the Secretary of State.

?I reject this as an effort by self-interested ambulance chasers to influence the Secretary of State?s count,? James Harris of ShowMe Better Courts responded Wednesday.

The Web site of ShowMe Better Courts says direct elections of judges put “the people – not special interest groups or elite legal industry associations – in charge of Missouri’s judiciary.”

The Web site of Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts Action Fund states, “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.”

To learn more about the controversy in Missouri, which has become a heated showdown, check out Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on May 26, 2010 (boomark / email).