Last summer, as Patty and I were driving down U.S. 49 on the way to Table Rock Lake, we saw a lot of political signs for two candidates battling for the Republican nomination for state Senate in Missouri’s 31st District.
The candidates were Jack Bondon, a state representative who was term limited and had to go up or out, and Rick Brattin, a former state representative who had “termed out” in 2018.
I knew the Bondon name from Berbiglia, the longtime liquor store chain that went out of business a few years ago after having prospered for many years. Jack Bondon was a partner in Berbiglia with his brother Ralph, and both are originally from Kansas City. At some point, Jack Bondon moved to Belton and got into politics in 2014. I’m guessing Bondon was a Democrat when he was in Kansas City but shifted to Republican when he moved to Belton because, well, you know, there’s no longer any future for a Democrat seeking office in Cass County. (Former Cass County Prosecutor Teresa Hensley can attest to that.)
I could tell from the signs that Brattin, of Harrisonville, was running to the right of Bondon. Every sign of his bore an American flag, and his basic message was he was the true conservative, implying that Bondon was a pretender.
Even though I don’t know much about Cass County politics, I figured Bondon would win, based on his name recognition.
I was wrong. In the August primary, Brattin won rather handily, drawing about 14,000 votes to Bondon’s 12,500. Brattin then went on to slaughter a Democrat named Raymond Kinney in the general election.
After Brattin beat Bondon, I knew Brattin would be stirring up trouble in Jefferson City. And, sure enough, last week, he popped up in a story in the Missouri Independent as the sponsor of a ludicrous bill that would force a statewide election on a proposed Constitutional amendment that would gut the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan.
Missouri has had the nonpartisan plan since 1940, after Missourians got fed up with longtime KC political boss Tom Pendergast’s political machine abusing the state’s judicial system.
The plan, one of the best things that ever happened in Missouri, greatly reduced the role of politics in the selection of judges in urban areas and at the Supreme Court and appellate court levels. Under the plan, which about 30 other states have adopted, a nonpartisan judicial commission reviews applications, interviews candidates and selects a panel of three candidates. The governor then selects from the panel.
The key is that judges and lawyers comprise a majority of all judicial panels, which vary in size depending on the level of the judicial posts in question.
The plan has been very effective at reducing politics in the judicial ranks, and that’s a good thing to everyone but Republicans, who, now that they have a vise grip on statewide elections, also want full control of judicial appointments.
The Constitutional amendment that Brattin is proposing would, if approved by voters, create a federal-style system where the governor appoints judges to the state Supreme Court and appeals courts, with state Senate confirmation.
Brattin and others of his ilk are cannily utilizing a pitch that just might sell with voters: they’re painting trial attorneys, who rank down there with politicians on the public popularity scale, as the bogeymen.
At a committee hearing on Thursday, Brattin said: “There is partisanship in these elections. It’s just where do we want partisanship? Is it by the people who were elected by the people, or is it the insider baseball elections within the Bar Association?”
He went on to say, “I would rather see a duly elected governor be able to choose, kind of like the president gets to choose.”
The kind of president he had in mind, of course, was not Harry Truman or Barack Obama. No, his kind of president is Donald Trump, who, with the help of the Republican-controlled Senate, pushed through more than 200 high-level judges, including three Supreme Court justices, 54 U.S. Court of Appeals judges and 174 U.S. District Court judges…A dump-truck load the nation will be suffering from for decades.
The upshot of Brattin’s proposal is that if his proposed amendment gets to the ballot and voters approve it, we probably wouldn’t see another Democratic Supreme Court or appellate court judge for decades.
The hopeful news is that the last time voters weighed in on the Nonpartisan Court Plan, in 2012, they soundly defeated a proposed amendment that would have given the governor the power to appoint a majority of commission members that choose nominees for the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
The way Missouri has changed, however, it’s very worrisome. I’m afraid a well-funded campaign aimed at those “nasty trial attorneys” (shades of Trump’s “nasty woman”) might take root with Republican voters and that we’d wave goodbye to one of the areas in which our state has been a model for progress and excellence.
…Rick Brattin. When I saw that guy on those American-flag signs — Mr. Super Patriot — I knew he could be big trouble.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I do not see being patriotic as a negative.
I don’t either. It’s the degree…
Patriotic is just another term/label slung around now that has lost most of its meaning.
I remember last summer when The Star’s conservative columnist wrote that only real patriots in Kansas were the ones who lived in rural Kansas. It’s amazing to claim that the 70 percent or so of the Americans who live in urban/metro America are not patriots and only 30% who are from rural areas are.
Jim, you have sounded the alarm for Missourians to take notice that extreme partisans in the state senate want to corrupt our vaunted “Missouri Plan” in the selection of judges and replace it with a selection process that will end up putting political hacks on the bench. The more independent our judiciary is, the better.
Brattin was my state representative (and now my state senator) until redistricting moved him out of my district, then it was Bondon. Brattin termed out two years before Bondon and at the time ran for, and won, a minor county seat for two years, which at the time I said was a holding pattern anticipating his run for state senate. Brattin’s a former marine whose campaign claimed he will “fight for” his constituents like he fought as a marine. He just won’t answer the question of whether he was ever deployed to foreign soil or actually fought a foe for his country. He’s the darling of the religious/conspiratorial extreme right and has the cash backing of wealthy wackos. He’ll be around to do lots of harm in the years to come.
I thought you might weigh in on this — and elucidate the subject — with your Cass County ties. Thanks, Steve.
I’m sorry, the Johnson County, KS bench has a similar system and it’s a joke. I reviewed all of the candidates for the bench when we opposed it and in every instance either a political hack or a major donor to the governor was appointed to the bench. Stephen Ware at the University of Kansas Law School reviewed the various schemes and every plan wound up with virtually the same outcome. (Which is why i wasn’t very enthusiastic that even if we had won it would have made any difference.)
Jim, very good warning about the proposed constitutional amendment. Unfortunately I cannot vote no as I do not live in Missouri. But similar actions are being considered in Kansas. Even though I am not a “trial lawyer” I strongly oppose these efforts because it highly politicizes the Supreme Court and the appellate courts. There is partisanship to some degree in the selection of the nominees and the selection by the governor, but not to the extent it would be if a governor were to nominate the judges.
If it happens, then there will be endless debates and delays over the governor’s selections, with highly charged partisanship. Missouri is better than that to sink into such debates. It is a terrible way to “reform” the judicial selection system. In most counties, judges are elected in partisan elections, which stinks because the lawyers feel compelled to contribute to a particular judge, and then possibly endure the repercussions if the attorney backed judicial candidate does not win.
This is a classic case of :”if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it!”
In the non-partisan plan, nominees urge their friends to write glowing letters to the judicial selection panel. If asked and a lawyer does not write such a letter there is still a question whether the lawyer will be treated fairly by the person who is selected. Usually the governor will know which of the three nominees is a member of the governor’s party. I have seen where judges selected under the non-partisan plan can turn out to be pariahs and it is almost impossible to oust the judge in a retention election because the general electorate may not know how bad the judge is. Lawyers have to organize a campaign, which has tremendous risks, to warn the public not to retain the judge. This happened in Clay County in the early 90s when the campaign was successful.
Trial lawyers probably dominate the selection nominees. However, trial lawyers are not all plaintiffs’ attorneys but are also criminal defense attorneys and civil defense attorneys. Some local judicial positions deal primarily with probate, which has few jury trials, or family court issues. A judge needs to have trial experience to competently try a case, whether a jury trial or a bench trial.
No matter what system is used, personal politics will reign supreme.
Readers: While not a trial lawyer, Bill is a lawyer and knows more about this than the vast majority of people.
Thank you for your kind remarks, Jim.
Playin to his base. After spending 25 years working the courts in St. Louis as a sheriff’s deputy and watching the system at work, changing the selection process of judge selection would be a disaster. The system used in Missouri is the standard by which at least 20 other states use to select their judges. Why fix a system that works? Oh wait, that’s what the right does. The system works like this: When a spot on the bench opens up in a particular circuit, applicants send in their forms to be considered for the panel to the judicial selection committee in Jefferson City. Now here is where the politics come in. Each applicant will go “hat in hand” to as many political hacks has they can get a letter of recommendation from and ask for their backing to the committee. Once the committee has gotten all of the recommendations, they sort through them and begin the interview process. They narrow down the list to the final three, who are then vetted by the governor’s staff and interviewed again, and the governor makes the final selection.
Now, any lawyer who resides within the circuit is welcome to apply for the position, and even if you don’t have residence in the circuit you can apply. Most associate circuit judges will apply for full circuit judge positions as they come open and hope to move up judicial ladder. Once in office, the judges go on the ballot every six years for retention or rejection.
Judges an serve until they reach the age of 70. OK, so now think of a system where every two or four years a judge must run for re-election against one or more opponents. You the think the system is slow now? How about one where the judge has to make his/her decision based on the voting base rather than the law?
Over the years some of the decisions made by the judge I worked for left me shaking my head but after an appeal to the higher courts, in almost all cases the rulings were upheld. Having an independent judicial system is one of the most important parts of our government and most be defended. This “circus clown” will get his time on the floor and get his few “Governor Lepetomane harumphs” from his fellow Trumpers on the floor, but let’s just kick this to the side of the road and move on to something more important like medical insurance for everyone in Missouri.
I’ll vouch for Bill, too. Laboring in the Cass County Prosecutor’s office for several years is hard-earned experience with broad exposure.
Thank you, Steve!