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And Now,
The Rest of the Story – What Missouri Lawyers Should Know about a Recent
Daily Record Article about “Better Courts for Missouri”
According to the St. Louis Daily Record, lawyers
throughout the state have received, or soon will be receiving, a letter
advocating that they request a partial refund of their bar dues. The letter is
from a fringe political group, Better Courts for Missouri. The term “group” is
loosely applied. Apparently, the group – or shell – consists of less than a
handful of people. Its website does not list its members. The group isn’t even a
group. They are not an entity, only a fictitious name, registered at the
Secretary of State’s Office with the home address of attorney Bill Placke.
The owner of the fictitious name is Missourians for Open and Accountable
Judicial Selection, a group with three board members. Even the Internet website
Wikipedia rejected the Better Courts for Missouri’s attempt to list themselves
in the online encyclopedia, noting that the group’s page was a blatant ad and
that it couldn’t prove it was a coalition.
The funding behind Better Courts for Missouri is cloaked by its executive
director, attorney Jonathan Bunch. At a recent hearing before the House Special
Committee on General Laws, Mr. Bunch, under intense questioning from the
committee, refused to disclose his source of funding.
This secretive band of political operatives has originated an initiative
proposal that would blatantly politicize Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court Plan. The
proposal is an amateurish stab at the heart of our state’s judicial selection
system. As an initiative, it is poorly drafted, poorly conceived and would
create a three-ring political circus for a judicial selection process.
On one side, you have a fringe group with a poorly developed proposal that would
advance their political agenda. On the other, you have the Board of Governors of
The Missouri Bar and a growing coalition of well-respected lawyers, major bar
associations, business groups and other credible organizations. All recognizing
that Missouri’s judiciary has a national reputation for fairness, efficiency and
impartiality.
The letter that is being sent to Missouri Bar members from this shell, with its
fictitious name, should be regarded by Missouri lawyers for what it is: Part of
the ongoing special interest campaign to erode support for the Non-Partisan
Court Plan and that of the long list of groups that are committed to reducing
the role of politics in judicial selection.
The following is the current and growing list of Non-Partisan Court Plan
supporters who are members of the coalition formed by
Missourians for Fair and
Impartial Courts.
Honorary
co-chairs of this group consist of the following former Missouri Supreme Court judges:John Holstein, Jack Bardgett, Ann Covington, Andrew Jackson Higgins, Edward "Chip" Robertson and Ronnie White
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