Poll of Judges, Lawyers Shows Deep, Disgusting Bias

It takes an awful lot to surprise me, but I'm genuinely surprised at the depravity exercised by Kansas judges and lawyers in a recent poll. It's simply revolting.

A poll of 11,000 judges and lawyers revealed massive support for four Kansas Supreme Court Justices and limited support for Supreme Court Justice. Now, I'm not all that surprised that a bunch of lawyers and judges think that Supreme Court Justices Lawton Nuss, Marla Luckert, carol Beier, and Dan Biles should be retained. I disagree. They should be fired by the people as our system, so carefully rigged, allows. However, my desire to can these justices is based on some of their baffling and unconstitutional opinions. The Kansas Supreme Court has been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court more than any other state Supreme Court. And it's typically not in partisan fashion. Even the liberals beloved RBG--Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsberg-- joins many an opinion slapping down the crazy Kansas Supreme Court. 

Still, I'm not surprised that 74 percent of the judges and lawyers polled are in favor of their retention. I'm stunned, however, that only 39 percent of those polled think Caleb Stegall should be retained.

Let's talk about Caleb Stegall, shall we? Stegall was appointed by Gov. Sam Brownback less than two years ago. In that time, he's recused himself from the most contentious case--the school funding cases--because he's an honorable man. Stegall once served as legal counsel to the Governor, and so he recused himself. Meanwhile, Dan Biles, who was once legal counsel for the Kansas Association of School Boards, has never--not even once-- in years on the bench (and school funding cases have been before the board constantly for the last 40 years) ever recused himself from a school funding case.

Judges and lawyers are supposedly above reproach, we're told. And Supreme Court Justices are legal scholars--uninterested in playing politics.

I call B.S. There is simply no other way to parse the results of the poll of supposedly nonpartisan judges and lawyers. Stegall has barely had a chance to hear any cases as a Kansas Supreme Court judge. He's done nothing partisan in his role as a judge, and in fact, in the times when he could have behaved as a partisan hack (see Dan Biles) Stegall stepped aside. 

This is one of the many reasons it's so infuriating that our Supreme Court judicial selection committee allows a group of lawyers selected by secret committee to essentially choose a list of potential candidates for the Governor to appoint. According to liberals and their media handmaidens, this is to keep politics out of judicial selection. Gosh, that sounds nice, doesn't it? The problem is that's not how it works. That's not how any of this works!

We're supposed to just pretend that these super secret backroom dealers--all lawyers--are somehow choosing candidates based solely on merit. It's such a joke. If liberals are so bent on keeping this baffling system of selection, they should own it and be honest about their motivations.

But integrity is a quality that appears to be reserved solely for conservatives. (See Caleb Stegall). #KeepCaleb While blatant partisanship wrapped in self-righteousness appears to be a quality reserved for the left. (See Dan Biles.)