MO HOUSE BILL TO REFORM JUDICIARY IS DEFEATED

The MO House of Representatives took up HJR 49, a bill that would have allowed elected representatives to choose Supreme Court Judges instead of, as is now the procedure, “secret selection” by a panel of lawyers. Predictably, the Bill to move the selection out into the open where voters could decide by communication with their elected representatives, which judges they wanted, was defeated. By defeat of this Bill, lawyers maintain their control of Supreme Court judicial appointments. The vote on this Bill is included at the end of the message. You can see who voted against passage of the Bill and therefore who supports lawyer control of these critical judicial appointments.

Liberal trial attorneys and the NEA, both oppose this Bill. (and they won!)
HJR 49, if it had passed, would have allowed more “strict constructionist” judges to be appointed to the Court and would have lessened the practice of appointing liberal judges who are inclined to legislate from the bench. As the result, 17 of the last 18 nominees to the Supreme Court have been Democrats.  In turn, the Supreme Court of Missouri has been issuing increasingly activist rulings.

If you are interested in this subject, here’s a web site that will give you more information:
http://www.newmoplan.com/

Journal of the House Second Regular Session, 94th General Assembly - FIFTY-FIFTH DAY, Thursday, April 17, 2008

Representative Cox moved that HCS HJR 49 be read the third time and passed. Which motion was defeated by the following vote:

AYES: 069 Avery Baker 123 Bivins Brown 30 Bruns Cooper 155 Cox Cunningham 145 Cunningham 86 Davis Day Dethrow Dixon Emery Ervin Faith Franz Funderburk Hobbs Hunter Icet Jones 117 Kasten Kelly Kingery Lembke Loehner May McGhee Moore Munzlinger Muschany Nieves Nolte Onder Parkinson Parson Portwood Quinn 7 Richard Robb Ruestman Ruzicka Sander Sater Schaaf Schad Scharnhorst Schlottach Schoeller Self Smith 14 Smith 150 Stevenson Stream Thomson Threlkeld Tilley Viebrock Wallace Walton Wasson Wells Weter Wilson 119 Wilson 130 Wood Wright 159 Mr Speaker

NOES: 083 Aull Baker 25 Bland Brandom Bringer Brown 50 Burnett Casey Chappelle-Nadal Corcoran Curls Darrough Daus Deeken Denison Donnelly Dusenberg El-Amin Fallert Fares Fisher Flook Frame George Grill Grisamore Guest Harris 23 Harris 110 Haywood Hodges Holsman Hoskins Hubbard Johnson Komo Kratky Kuessner Lampe LeVota Liese Lipke Low 39 Lowe 44 Marsh McClanahan Meadows Meiners Nance Nasheed Norr Oxford Page Pearce Pollock Pratt Quinn 9 Rucker Salva Scavuzzo Schieffer Schneider Schoemehl Shively Silvey Skaggs St. Onge Storch Sutherland Swinger Talboy Todd Villa Vogt Walsh Whorton Wildberger Witte Wright-Jones Yaeger Yates Young Zimmerman

PRESENT: 002 Dougherty Jones 89

ABSENT WITH LEAVE: 007 Cooper 120 Hughes Kraus Robinson Roorda Spreng Zweifel

VACANCIES: 002