The leader of Missouri’s lawyers says he’ll be 100 percent focused for the next week on defeating Amendment Three–the change in Missouri’s nonpartisan court plan.
Missouri Bar President Patrick Starke wants to have a full court press against giving the governor more power in the selection of appeals and supreme court judges and judges in Missouri’s most populous counties. He says the proposal would interject politics into a widely-praised and widely-emulated system that has sought to minimize politics in the selection of those judges.
Proponents have abandoned their campaign to get the amendment passed. But Starke says that doesn’t mean defeat is automatic or that proponents are giving up on their cause.”There is some question about who the proponents are….Whoever it is behind the curtain remains a mystery…You want to know who’s in support of Amendment 3, you can go look and see who’s donated money (and) you still won’t know who’s behind it,” he says.
Starke says the legal profession and the public will need to be vigilant even if Amendment Three is crushed at the polls next week. He says some lawmakers who support the proposal already are saying those concealed advocates want the change and that it will be back before the legislature. He doubts advocates will back away, no matter how badly Amendment three loses.