The Judicial Commission: Argle-Bargle or Foofaraw?

Bill McClellan has been tremendous with his last two columns in the Post-Dispatch about the Missouri Supreme Court opening and the Missouri non-partisan court plan. Two months ago, I blogged some suggestions for improvements to the court plan, which I think (hope) are worth revisiting. I think the non-partisan court plan should be kept, but the most important change it needs is to make the governor’s selections coincide with the term of the governor, rather than the current six-year staggered term. As I wrote in May, the number of governor appointments should also be increased by one to equal the number of lawyers and judges on each commission. With those changes, I think problems with the current set-up could be well-addressed.