Koch would be big winner if judicial selection amendment passes | Opinion
The 2026 primary election is still nine months away, but it’s never too early to start opposing the worst idea you’ll be asked to vote on.
In this case, it’s a proposed constitutional amendment to ditch the merit process for selecting Kansas Supreme Court justices, and replace it with partisan elections.
On its face, it sounds reasonable.
It’s not.
It is in part a power grab to enable the banning of abortions in Kansas, backed by anti-abortion militants who want to reverse the court’s ruling that the Kansas Constitution protects your right to medical privacy better than the federal Constitution does.
But the real power behind the amendment is the Koch network of political front groups, which have spent at least the last 25 years trying to shape the courts into a handmaiden of big business.
A 25-year campaign to influence courts
One of the first (and still one of the best) stories I’ve done here was a 1999 investigative report on Koch’s efforts to “educate” judges by gifting them with resort vacations in Snowbird, Utah, and Sanibel Island, Fla., where they attended seminars on why and how to go easy on big businesses sued in product liability, on-the-job injury, consumer protection and environmental law cases.
The program was started by Koch and funded by a who’s who of megacorporations — including Dow Chemical, DuPont, Union Carbide, General Motors, Ford, Philip Morris, Southwestern Bell, Pfizer, Cigna and Bethlehem Steel.
The whole thing was originally run through the University of Kansas, but KU backed out after the scheme was exposed for what it was and the university’s reputation for academic integrity was called into question.
A follow-up story, also in 1999, detailed how a Koch-founded and -funded political group, Citizens for a Sound Economy, led attacks on Oklahoma appellate judges with bogus “scorecard” mailers and full-page newspaper ads in an effort to intimidate the judiciary into being more corporation-friendly.
Citizens for a Sound Economy later became Americans for Prosperity. AFP is pushing the current judicial selection amendment along with other Koched-up political groups including the Kansas Policy Institute and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.
Right now, I think they’re running scared.
I’ve noticed a significant uptick in paid online ads by AFP pushing the amendment since last week’s elections, where conservative candidates took a pounding.
In Wichita, the more progressive candidates captured six out of seven seats up for grabs on the City Council and school board, including unseating two out of three incumbent USD-259 board members.
And it wasn’t just Wichita. As our sister paper the Kansas City Star noted: “Local election results throughout the Kansas City metro echoed a remarkable trend across the country, in which progressive or Democratic-leaning candidates largely defeated their more conservative challengers.“
The biggest lie in campaign of lies
AFP’s ads for the judicial-selection amendment are shrill and filled with lies.
The biggest one: “We have an entire branch of Kansas government controlled by only attorneys.”
That’s a whopper. And it’s one you’ll no doubt be hearing more often and at even louder volume between now and the Aug. 4 election.
Don’t be fooled.
Applicants for the state’s highest court are screened by the Supreme Court Nominating Commission, made up of nine people. Lawyers across the state elect five of the members. The other four are appointed by the governor and cannot be lawyers.
They research and interview applicants and narrow the field to three finalists, from which the governor picks one.
In theory, the five lawyers could team up and outvote the four non-lawyers. But in practice, it never happens.
Four of the lawyers on the panel are elected by their colleagues in each of the state’s four congressional districts, ensuring a balance between conservative and progressive areas of the state.
What the backers of the amendment are counting on is that if judges are elected by party, instead of being selected on merit, big business interests will be able to spend unlimited money to buy a Supreme Court that will side with corporations over ordinary citizens.
Banning abortions grabs headlines, but it’s really just a sideshow in the grand scheme.
Fair judges, or political hacks
Even if you’re conservative (maybe especially if you’re conservative) you probably don’t want a Supreme Court bought and paid for with corporate campaign money. Never can tell when you might get hurt on the job or injured by a faulty product.
And if that’s not enough, a little-noticed addendum to the proposed amendment would allow judges — including Supreme Court justices — to endorse, donate and raise money for other politicians running for other offices, and to hold leadership positions in political parties.
If that doesn’t make you nervous about the fairness of our court system, what would?
Funny, but there’s no mention of that provision in the “official” summary of the amendment that was written by the state Legislature to appear on your ballot.
The Republican-dominated Legislature also put its thumb on the scale by placing the constitutional amendment in an August primary, likely to draw more Republican voters than independents and Democrats.
I think the fear here (from the perspective of amendment supporters) is that Kansas could be primed for a repeat of the 2022 primary, when voters showed up in droves to reject the so-called Value Them Both amendment that sought to clear the way for an abortion ban.
The judicial selection amendment has been called “Value Them Both 2.0” by its opponents.
And while it is that, it’s much, much more, as it would also empower big business to abuse the citizenry of Kansas at will by replacing merit-selected justices with partisan hacks.
I’ll close here with another lie from Americans for Prosperity’s latest ad: “Support Kansas values & priorities, not special interests.”
If they want to call out the “special interest” involvement in this outrageous mess of an amendment, I suggest they start by shouting at themselves in a mirror.
This story was originally published November 14, 2025 at 4:53 AM.
