Politics

State Supreme Court May Lose Funding For Doing Its Job

Kansas judiciary may lose $$$ if they issue a decision the governor doesn't like...

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Oh, Kansas. You seem like such a nice place when Dorothy is singing about you, but man, your politics are wack sometimes. In the latest round of crazy, Governor Sam Brownback signed a law linking funding for the judiciary to the outcome of a case before the Kansas Supreme Court.

Yup, that’s right: Brownback only wants to pay the courts if they render the decision that he wants. Besides violating the core concept of separation of powers, it just reeks of the old-timey corruption you’d see in a movie when the bad guy pays our hero to take a dive.

The truth is there’s a history of bad blood between the governor/legislature and the courts in Kansas. It traces back to 2014 and a Kansas Supreme Court decision regarding school funding in which the court held the disparate funding between rich and poor school districts violated the state constitution and the remanded case.

It turns out the legislature didn’t much care for the notion of equitably funding public school, and took a shot at the court. As Slate reports:

Soon after, the legislature passed an administrative law that stripped the supreme court of its authority to appoint local chief judges and set district court budgets. (Instead, district court judges—who are often quite conservative—were allowed to elect their own chief judge.)

Arriving shortly after the school funding ruling, this law was widely seen as a retaliation against the court—and a warning. In their first ruling, the justices stopped short of declaring that the school system as a whole was constitutionally underfunded. But the court acknowledged that it would one day answer that question. And if the justices mandate more school funding, the legislature will have to raise taxes, a step few legislators are eager to take.

So this administrative law was a proverbial slap on the wrist to the judiciary that had the unmitigated gall to ask the legislature to do their damn job. It also proved the legislature was happy to interfere with the workings of the judiciary in order to get a desired outcome.

Now that administrative law is up for judicial review. Coincidentally, there is a bit of a budget crisis in Kansas — there’s a $400 million shortfall and a strong Tea Party contingent that is loathe to increase taxes to make up the deficit. So last week Brownback signed a piecemeal budget, pertaining only to the judiciary, providing funding for courts. That seems like a decent move on the part of the governor except for that pesky clause that says if the administrative law is struck down the judiciary loses its funding. The brashness of this political move has been noted:

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“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Matthew Menendez, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, which is helping to represent a Kansas judge challenging the constitutionality of the 2014 law. “It seems pretty clear that these mechanisms have been an effort by the governor and the Legislature to try and get a court system that is more in line with their philosophy.”

If you can’t pack the court, this is another option to get a judiciary on board with your politics… I guess.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback Threatens to Defund Judiciary if It Rules Against Him [Slate]
Courts Budget Intensifies Kansas Dispute Over Powers [New York Times]

 

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