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A truly interesting and extensive piece appeared over at the MAINstream Coalition's blog today that discussed an upcoming ballot initiative in Johnson County, Kansas that would move county judges from being appointed by a panel to being elected by the public.
The instigator of the ballot initiative is of course another wing-nut who thinks that by making judges become elected he would score a bunch of conservative judges - ignoring the fact that this will definitely not be the case, especially among the members of the Johnson County Bar Association.
The piece links to a 2007 AP story on Tim Golba as well as info on the specific bill.
"Tim Golba of Lenexa, who led the petition drive, said he wants fair judges but also believes they should be held accountable by the public for their decisions and have to explain their positions on such things as abortion or school finance.
"The way the system is right now, it leaves the people in the dark," Golba said. "If we are a government of the people, by the people, for the people, then I think the people ought to have a say-so in that part of our government."
What is particularly amusing about this quote is that the extensive piece at the MAINstream blog details the entire process of appointing these judges - because the process was comply open to the public.
Also - check out Johnson Countians for Justice
The article goes on to say
"Attorney Greg Musil, who leads the citizens group, said he asked those pushing the ballot measure for an example of an abusive decision by any of the county's 23 district court judges.
"To date, I've not heard one from anybody," Musil said.
Golba and board member Mike Pirner of Lenexa said they couldn't point to specific rulings that upsets them, but said district judges can make "ridiculous" decisions.
I'm so serious ... they really said that....
The detailed accounts of MAINKansan discusses 5 of the 10 or so candidates (which even includes pictures of the event) and recalls candidate #2
"He said that the application was very difficult and extensive - saying it was like a federal application (reminder: this is a county judgeship.)
"Which I guess proves that the process works because you all know everything and its so detailed."
(interesting point)
Toward the end of the piece it talks about the application itself (what questions are it and notes)
In addition to the application above there is a KBI, and FBI search done on them (aka criminal check) as well as a credit check, and they run an ethics report. Ethics reports are broken into two different groups - lawyers and for judges - they run both checks just on the off chance they've served as a pro-temp judge (stand in judge) or a magistrate judge etc...
Not only do they interview the references, but they also talk to the "last 3 attorney's" the applicant has dealt with in recent cases and the people who wrote the recommendation letters. That is a total of 13 people.
When they are calling references for other candidates they ask the references of those people if they could go over the list of all the applicants and if that person could provide any information about the other candidates as well. So - there were a total of I think 10 candidates for the position. And if there are 13 references given (assuming there is no doubling of names... which there are probably a few) there are 130 people consulted about each applicant. Can you imagine applying for a job and having to give 130 references? That is actually more references or checks than the NSA asks for in its application process. But then again - they can tap your phone...
I'm surprised that this process is so detailed - and in comparison with actual election of candidates you really don't get that detailed an interview as you would with this kind of format.
"Too, many of the people interviewed might not feel like they can say whatever they want if the applicant and the public were going to hear what they were going to say. Make sense? So if Judge Joe Public is called he can feel ok about saying "yeah this one time I caught Larry tapping his foot under
