Thursday, April 29, 2010

Humphreys contributes a quarter of a million in effort to scrap Missouri's judicial selection plan

It has been couched as an effort to bring democracy to the process of choosing judges in Missouri, but the forces who are attempting to scrap Missouri's much-praised judicial selection process seem to be the kind who are willing to spend every dollar to mold our courts into the best (for them) money can buy.

With his $100,000 contribution to Show Me Better Courts Wednesday, David Humphreys of TAMKO in Joplin has now contributed a quarter of a million dollars to the effort, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records.

The group has received $300,000 in oversized contributions from the Better Courts for Missouri group in the last few days, according to the Ethics Commission documents, which is interesting since the last time the group filed anything but a limited activity report with the Commission, it showed $28.05 on cent.

No oversized contributions have been received in recent months, according to the Commission documents, so where did the $300,000 come from?

On Better Courts for Missouri's website, the following passage can be found:

Every Missourian is harmed when government does its business behind closed doors. Unfortunately, the judges that decide our most important cases are currently selected by a Commission that conducts every aspect of its business in absolute secrecy, allowing special interest groups and corruption to take hold. We believe the same open records laws that apply to the rest of government should apply to the Commission that selects judges.

I would counter that every Missourian is harmed when efforts to dismantle our government go on behind closed doors, headed by the very businesspeople who would benefit from that dismantling.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randy, Your argument is hypocritical. Your criticizing an effort to bring more transparency and accountability to judicial selection merely because you are afraid that money is a corrupting influence in politics.

You can't have it both ways. You are either for an open government without restrictions or a government of those that you deem worthy (just another form of a closed government).

Unfortunately, you are so wedded to the Democratic Party and the idea that money is evil that you're unwilling to craft a consistent ideology for yourself.

Anonymous said...

Very well stated, anonymous.

Anonymous said...

Our politicians are craven enough under the current system. Any effort to make judges bend to these same wealthy elites that partisan politicians fawn all over now is extremely dangerous and ill-conceived.

I am for a judiciary that is free from partisan politics. I support Mr. Turner's well-considered skepticism, and I oppose this measure.