Press Release
April 13, 2006
For Immediate Release

Wichita Federal District Court Judge Monti Belot recently irritated some Kansas state lawmakers with his personal statement critical of the legislature's priorities. However, under Republican Party of Minnesota vs. White, 536 U.S. 765 (2002, 7-2 Opinion), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all judges, state and federal, have first amendment rights to state their opinions, both as judicial candidates and while serving on the bench.

The high court made it clear that a judge's partiality is sacrificed only when he favors one party over another, and that the judge has every right to public expressions of his opinions on social and legal issues. However, this dust-up underscores a major first/fourteenth amendment problem for Kansas state judges.

Certain Kansas judicial ethics canons violate White by forbidding state judges from public expressions of opinions on social and legal issues. Under the canon strictures, the free speech rights of judges and voters are violated. The consequences are severe. Kansas voters enter polling booths to vote on judges/justices with absolutely no useful information to guide their voting decisions, voiding the democratic process.

This allows district court judges to rise to the Kansas Supreme Court without any useful information to the Kansas voters and no provisions for their confirmation through advice and consent of the Senate. The resulting lack of accountability has produced an arrogant disregard for the constitutional separation of powers by the current Kansas Supreme Court, Democrat and Republican justices alike. The current broken state system allows a small number of trial lawyers to control the Judge nominating procedure. They call it "merit selection," and denigrate popular election as "political."