Kansas Watchdog’s Earl Glynn reports on the fund-raising and politics surrounding Kansas Supreme Court Justice Carol A. Beier and the retention election she faces this year. Normally these judicial retention elections are not newsworthy, although perhaps they should be. This year’s retention election for Justice Beier, however, is attracting attention.
What’s interesting to me is the state’s legal establishment rallying around a justice that it had an outsized role in selecting. Kansas University law professor Stephen J. Ware was researched and written extensively on how the method of judicial selection in Kansas concentrates power in the hands of the state’s lawyers: “Kansas is extreme — no other state gives the bar as much power.” See Kansas is at the undemocratic extreme in judicial selection for more about Ware’s work on this topic.
Questions about new 527 PACs, $25,000 loan unanswered. Groups support Supreme Justice Beier?
A political battle may be brewing over the retention of certain members of the Kansas Supreme Court in the November general election, and especially the retention of Justice Carol Beier.
Two Wichita-based political action committees formed in recent months, but directors and donors are unwilling to answer questions, including one about a loan. One group spent nearly $25,000 more than it raised.
Based on the political history of the donors and the vendors, the new PACs appear to be a response to the “Fire Beier” campaign announced in January by Kansans for Life.
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