F. James Robinson Jr.: History repeating in attempt to stack court

Members of the Kansas Supreme Court today must feel a bit like U.S. Supreme Court justices did in 1937.

Like their Topeka counterparts, the federal justices were the target of their chief executive – President Franklin Roosevelt.

Stung by U.S. Supreme Court decisions striking down key pieces of Roosevelt’s Depression-era progressive programs and buoyed by his 1936 landslide re-election, Roosevelt proposed bold steps seeking to “stack” the Supreme Court by encouraging some members to retire or trying to increase the number of justices. Either step would have allowed him to appoint justices more willing to agree with his programs, but Roosevelt’s radical plans were met with considerable objection and never went forward.

Eight decades later, Gov. Sam Brownback is pushing his own “stacking” plans in Kansas. A comment he reportedly made to a colleague rings out as clearly today as if it had actually come from the Roosevelt White House: “Why can’t you go along with us on this judicial selection issue and let us change the way we select judges so we can get judges who will vote the way we want them to?”

That comment was directed to then-Sen. Tim Owens when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Brownback unsuccessfully tried to convince Owens to join the campaign to change selection of state Supreme Court justices.

Currently, an independent commission proposes a list of three qualified candidates from which the governor can appoint a justice for the Supreme Court. Brownback wants a change to the so-called federal process that gives him much greater power to find and appoint justices “who will vote the way we want them to.”

The governor was handed a setback this month when the Kansas House failed to get a two-thirds majority on a constitutional amendment to give Brownback more power to appoint justices. However, other bills on the issue are still pending, one of which would put the governor’s thumb on the independent commission.

At a time when the public seems to have little confidence in its political representatives, it’s hard to conceive how they could stomach any plan to concentrate even more power in someone in authority.

When you read, “so we can get judges who will vote the way we want them to,” whether spoken by Roosevelt or Brownback or anyone in office seeking expand their power, you realize this is a warning signal that if unheeded will cost us dearly in the years to come, altering the checks and balances we depend upon to protect our basic rights and liberties.

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 6:01 PM with the headline "F. James Robinson Jr.: History repeating in attempt to stack court."