Big win for judicial independence
Score one for judicial independence as well as the Kansas Constitution, which gives the state Supreme Court “general administrative authority over all courts in this state.” That includes the selection of chief administrative district judges, according to a Wednesday decision declaring a 2014 law unconstitutional.
“A chief district court judge is an instrument through which the Supreme Court wields its general administrative authority,” and without the ability to select and replace chief judges, “the Supreme Court’s authority to administer a ‘unified court’ is severely hamstrung,” wrote Shawnee County District Judge Larry Hendricks.
Though an appeal is assured, the opinion delivered a big win to Kingman-based District Judge Larry Solomon, the longtime chief judge in the 30th Judicial District. His lawsuit, which has gained national attention, challenges the change in chief judge selection as a violation of the separation-of-powers doctrine.
If lawmakers and the governor believe chief judges are best chosen by their peers across the 31 judicial districts, they should have taken it up with voters through a constitutional amendment. They went wrong in simply passing a law taking the power to choose chief judges and to control budgets away from the Supreme Court.
Worse, they brazenly tried to ensure the reforms would withstand any legal challenge by declaring that all judicial funding through June 2017 would evaporate if any part of the 2014 law was thrown out as unconstitutional.
So if Attorney General Derek Schmidt is right that the decision “could effectively and immediately shut off all funding for the judicial branch,” as he said Wednesday, he can point fingers at the Legislature and Gov. Sam Brownback. They authored and signed, respectively, the coercive affront to the Supreme Court’s authority that now threatens the entire judicial system’s operation.
The law’s legislative advocates still don’t seem to get it. “Kansas has a rich, deep history of promoting local control,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jeff King, R-Independence. “This opinion (from Hendricks) strikes at the heart of allowing the officials closest to the people to make the decisions.”
But the Legislature – which is highly selective regarding local control, recently setting it aside on guns, taxation, and municipal and school board elections – cannot just grant local authority by statute when it comes to the judiciary. It doesn’t matter that the Supreme Court already effectively gives judges in Sedgwick and Johnson counties the discretion to choose their own chiefs. What matters is what the state constitution says.
More litigation over the defunding mechanism seems inevitable, as courts must be open to serve Kansans and justice. Chief Justice Lawton Nuss said Thursday that justices wouldn’t necessarily have to recuse themselves if a case about judicial funding and authority came before the Supreme Court. Also on Thursday, Hendricks stayed his order at Schmidt’s request, protecting the judicial budget for now.
Blame for any legal costs or uncertainty belongs to the executive and legislative branches, which inexplicably thought Kansas needed a constitutional crisis on top of its fiscal one.
For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman
This story was originally published September 3, 2015 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Big win for judicial independence."