2 weeks Ago
For more than half a century, Oklahoma's system for appointing the state's appellate judges has been considered among the nation's best. It came from reforms after an embarrassing bribery scandal in the 1960s that sent top judges to prison. Critical aspects strip out politics by putting decisions to a bipartisan group known as the Judicial Nominating Commission.
That commission vets and interviews candidates before sending a list of nominees to the governor, who must choose from that list. After each term, judges file to retain their jobs, as approved by voters. No judge in Oklahoma history has lost a retention ballot, likely due to the approach focusing on merit over political favor.
That's why efforts to reject the retention of three Oklahoma Supreme Court judges is concerning. The Tulsa World's Randy Krehbiel reported this movement is backed by nearly $1.6 million spent by a political action committee with ties to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs conservative advocacy group and $447,000from the dark money PAC 46 Action , which is linked to Gov.
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The attacks paint the judges as left-leaning activists. In reality, they have found some laws or legislative actions unconstitutional, particularly around the using taxes for religious purposes, tribal sovereignty and abortion restrictions. If lawmakers don't want their bills or actions deemed unconstitutional, they should stop passing unconstitutional laws and policies.
If voters go along with this far-right attack, it sends the message to other appellate judges to get in line with their ideology or they'll be targeted next. That judicial interference will corrupt the checks-and-balance of our government. The retention ballot includes: Supreme Court Justices Noma Gurich, Yvonne Kauger and James Edmondson; Court of Criminal Appeals Judges David Lewis, William Musseman and Scott Rowland; and Court of Civil Appeals Judges Robert “Bobby” Bell, Timothy Downing, Brian Jack Goree, Jim Huber, E.
Bay Mitchell III and Thomas E. Prince. We endorse the retention of all the judges.
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