Bill would take partisanship out of most Missouri judicial races

The scene was unique enough for Sen. Luann Ridgeway to want a picture to commemorate it.

Ridgeway, a Smithville Republican, took out her cell phone in the Senate Lounge on Monday and pointed it toward Sen. Kevin Engler, a Farmington Republican, as he sat next to a lobbyist for the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys.

After all, Ridgeway said, it's not often that the attorneys' group testifies in favor of a Republican bill — especially one that seeks to make changes to the court system.

But that's what happened last week as Engler filed a bill that aims to bring a little consistency to the argument that the Missouri Plan is the best way to keep politics at bay when it comes to selecting judges.

That was the issue raised by a judge in Engler's district at a Missouri Bar gathering last fall in Columbia. The judge, Darrell Missey, asked his fellow lawyers and judges why it was OK to keep partisanship out of judicial races in the big cities and in the appeals and high court — which are covered by the nonpartisan Missouri Plan — but not in rural areas.

"People assume things about me because there's an R after my name," Missey said. "For a judge, that makes things difficult."

Engler wants to change that.

His bill would take the partisanship out of all judicial races in areas of the state not covered by the Missouri Plan. That means that judges who currently run as Republicans and Democrats would instead run with no party identification, as many city council and school board candidates do.

"When they are elected, we expect them to be nonpartisan," Engler said of his bill. So why shouldn't they run that way, too, he suggested.

When the state's chief justice, William Ray Price Jr., gave his State of the Judiciary speech to lawmakers last week, he stressed how important it was for judges to remain independent of political pressure.

"In every case, someone loses. Fairness, impartiality and a level playing field — not subject to outside influence or manipulation, not dependent on a pre-existing promise — are the absolute necessity," Price said.

But while the Missouri Plan aims to keep politics at bay by focusing on merit in the judicial selection process, that's not necessarily the case for most judicial elections in the state. Run for judge anywhere outside the state's biggest three cities, and you will do so as a Republican or Democrat.

What that means in some counties, Engler testified during the hearing on his bill, is that if you're a Democrat in a Republican county — or vice versa — it doesn't matter if you're qualified to be a judge. Getting elected is going to be a challenge. And judges in partisan races will face pressure to talk about issues they shouldn't — or, as Missey said, some people will simply assume things about them because of the letter after their name.

Whether lawmakers think that's a bad thing will help determine whether Engler's bill gets any traction. Ridgeway, for instance, thinks party affiliation tells voters something about judicial candidates, and she thinks that's a good thing.

If Engler's bill does go anywhere, he expects it to get connected to the annual attempt to make changes to the Missouri Plan, creating a bit of irony. Critics of the process by which judges in St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield and top courts are chosen have said that process is too influenced by trial lawyers.

The trial lawyers and other defenders of the judicial system have successfully fought off those changes in the Legislature for several sessions now, much to the chagrin of many of the Republicans who lead both chambers.

That has been a very partisan battle, and Engler and the trial lawyers have been on opposite sides. But there they sat this week, side by side, arguing that the judicial system needs less partisanship, not more.