HJR10 Transperency?

The light’s blinking. I push the button and the message begins; “Hand picked judges behind closed doors. Liberal trial attorneys meet in secret to hand pick judges. Tell Kenny Biermann to vote yes on HJR10 and vote that their will be more transparency. Vote yes to stop these liberal judges. Vote yes so that everyone can have fair courts free of liberal control. Tell Kenny Biermann to vote yes…” and then it gives his office phone number.

I am thinking who these people are. Paid for by Better Courts for Missouri. I didn’t know there was a problem and how many times did they say liberal?So I looked up the current way judges are appointed, as follows:

Judicial Vacancies Selection of judges in the Supreme Court, the Missouri Court of Appeals and five of the state's urban trial courts is governed by the merit-based nonpartisan court plan. In the remaining 110 counties, voters continue to choose trial judges through partisan elections. When an interim vacancy occurs in one of these counties, the governor appoints a judge to serve until the next election. For more information about this application process, click here: interim judicial vacancies in trial courts.The process of filing vacancies under the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan requires the governor to select judges from a panel of three qualified applicants selected by a nonpartisan commission of citizens, lawyers and a judge. Voters then decide periodically whether to retain nonpartisan judges. For vacancies on the Supreme Court of Missouri and Missouri Court of Appeals, the nonpartisan commission is called the Appellate Judicial Commission. The five circuit courts subject to the nonpartisan plan have their own circuit judicial commissions.

Next their website. Better Courts for Missouri is a Missouri not-for-profit corporation that is exempt from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to Better Courts for Missouri are not tax deductible.

If your main concern is all about transparency, who are you? Who backs you? Who is running this organization? I emailed them. So far, no reply.

Who sponsors this bill? It’s Senator Stanley Cox. He is also a sponsor of a horrible bill, photo ID legislation, a neat way to make it harder to be able to vote. He is on the Rulesand Crime Prevention Committee. Let’s see what other bills he sponsors:

• HB171 Exempts a tenant from rent payments when his or her residence is destroyed by an act of God
  
• HB1807 Renames the State Schools for Severely Handicapped Children as the Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled
  
• HB2428 Exempts well systems operated by churches or other houses of worship from certain rules governing well construction
  

To be fair , there were a few not so bad ideas too. I am suspicious when I get a call saying liberal over and over and then the bill says it is trying to be more transparent? Seems to me as if someone is not being honest about this group.