Attack Update: May 31, 2007

• The Radical: Missouri Governor Matt Blunt
• The Attack: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt wants to make changes to the state’s judicial selection process to counter improper “judicial activism.”
• The Missouri Supreme Court decided a case 5-2 in favor of allowing collective bargaining for public employees. The Governor and Republican state legislative leaders now wish to change the process by which the state’s supreme court is selected.
• It appears that, in November 2008, voters will be asked to consider eliminating the state’s officially non-partisan selection system in favor of a system that would grant more power to the governor and legislature to name and to retain judges.
• Democratic leaders are accusing the governor and the state’s GOP of attacking the judiciary because many of the sitting justices were named by Democratic governors.
• Interestingly enough, several commentators consider the decision to be the model of “strict construction” by correcting an improper activist conservative decision made in 1947 that barred public employees from collective bargaining.
• The Significance: Not only is the Missouri Supreme Court under attack for making an allegedly “activist” decision, but the independence of the state court is under assault by the state GOP’s attempt to change the state’s non-partisan system for selecting judges. The Missouri judicial selection plan has a nonpartisan special commission select candidates for the courts, who are later “elected” to return to judicial office by way of a retention vote. The Missouri system has been copied by several states for being a role model for ensuring judicial independence. What is disturbing in this case is the idea that conservatives are alleging “judicial activism” even when a decision is based on the conservative ideal of “strict construction.” Gov. Blunt’s blatantly attempt to circumvent to manipulate “judicial activism” into meaning any decision with which he disagrees is yet another assault on the independence of the judiciary and the politicization of justice.