L&T Publisher Earl Watt

Many are pointing to the infamous “Triple Play” as a reason to keep the selection of Kansas Supreme Court justices in the hands of a few.

Isn’t that exactly what was wrong with the Triple Play?

Let me explain:

When Fred Hall lost his primary election to remain as governor of Kansas in 1956, he devised a plan that short-circuited the judicial selection process.

Kansas Supreme Court Justice William Smith resigned, leaving a vacancy that would have to be filled by governor appointment.

Hall then resigned as governor, making Lieutenant Governor John McCuish governor.

McCuish then appointed Hall as a justice of the Kansas Supreme Court, thus the Triple Play.

While this was the exception to the rule back in 1956 when justices were elected by the people, how different is it from today’s process?

What we have done is legalize the Triple Play by allowing a non-elected commission made up of five lawyers and four people appointed by the governor to select every justice, not just one like happened in 1956.

While this political maneuvering was wrong, the court still had six justices chosen by the people of Kansas.

And, in the next election, Hall would have had to be approved by voters.

Again, how different is that from today’s retention votes?

Proponents of the current system claim Kansans have the right to vote on justices by retaining them after they have already been appointed on serving on the high court.

But that exact same right existed in 1956 when Hall was appointed to fill a vacancy.

Since 1956, not one justice — not one — has ever been removed by the retention process. That’s because the Kansas Supreme Court justices are the best-kept secret in government. No one knows who they are, and so no one knows if they should vote yes or no on retaining a justice.

In 1956, that was not the case. This highly questionable act of the Triple Play was clearly known across the state, and Hall would not have been able to survive an election.

Instead, the state voted for the current “merit-based” system rather than allowing the election process to correct the issue.

Today, voters are told to let the election system correct any errors made by the insiders who get to select the current justices.

In a way, the current system simply legitimized the Triple Play by blaming voters for something they did not do — select a bad justice.

It was a biased appointment that would have been removed at the next possible election.

Now, all seven justices are biased insider-appointed justices, not just one like 1956.

The current system didn’t fix the Triple Play, it institutionalized it.

Now, every justice is selected by five biased lawyers chosen by the Kansas Bar Association with their priorities, and with the bias of the decisions they want made by the court, and that may not be the decisions you would like to see.

To claim the current system is not politicized is naive. The recent nine-member panel had eight Democratic donors and included the former communications director of the Kansas Democratic Party. The people in this secret society of judicial gods are chosen based on their political views, not on their commitment to selecting a justice based on “merit.”

And they will select justices accordingly. They have rigged the system in such a way that makes the Triple Play look like child’s play and replaced it with the Hidden Ball Trick. It “looks” like it can be trusted, but they know they own a third of the government without having to earn those positions from the consent of the governed — the people of Kansas.

The backroom selections of all seven biased justices far outweigh the one backroom choice of one biased justice in 1956.

The only way to have a court that is making decisions only after having been given permission to do so by the people is by election, and for that reason all Kansans should vote Yes on the Constitutional amendment question Aug. 4.