Recently a Kansas blog covered a political event and wrote this in a post titled Defending America Summit Brought out the Wingnuts:
Stephen Ware, Professor at the University of Kansas Law School:
“What’s unusual about Kansas is about how little the people’s wishes matter. There are no checks and balances in the judicial selection process.”
********. It’s called a retention voted [sic]. Don’t like Justice Dan Biles? Vote him out in a year. And, hey, aren’t all professors supposed to be crazy liberals?
I asked Mr. Ware about the value of retention votes in giving a voice to the people. As it turns out, he said, no Kansas Supreme Court justice has ever lost a retention vote, and only one lower court judge has. “This is consistent with the pattern around the country, in which judges hardly ever lose retention votes. That’s mostly because there’s no rival candidate to spark a real debate.”
So it appears that in Kansas, retention votes have not been a meaningful way for voters to engage in the process of choosing their judges. However, I will trust this blogger to educate us about crazy liberals.
This blogger also mentions (A few notes on the Governor’s budget) that the Kansas Senate’s President is Derek Schmidt. Call your office, Stephen Morris.