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A bill ending the threat of the state’s courts shutting down over a dispute over the power of the Kansas Supreme Court won final approval Thursday from the Legislature.
The measure repeals a 2015 law that could have nullified the court system’s entire budget. The Senate approved it 39-1. The House passed it last week, 119-0, and the measure goes next to Gov. Sam Brownback.
The dispute threatening the court system’s budget began with a law enacted in 2014 by Republican legislators.
It stripped the Supreme Court of its power to appoint the chief judges in each of the state’s 31 judicial districts, giving it to the local judges instead. Supporters said the change would give local judges more control over their courts, but critics called it an attack on the judiciary’s independence.
One of the 31 chief judges sued. With the lawsuit pending last year, Republicans approved another statute saying that if the earlier policy changes were struck down, the court system’s entire budget through June 2017 would be nullified.
The Supreme Court struck down the 2014 policy change in December, concluding that it improperly infringed on the authority to administer the courts granted to the justices by the state constitution.
Top Republicans said they never intended to shut down the courts. But Democrats chastised GOP lawmakers Thursday for creating a potential crisis.
“We shouldn’t even be here,” said Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City Democrat.
The only vote against the judicial funding bill in either chamber came from Republican Sen. Molly Baumgardner, of Louisburg.
She said the process for selecting Supreme Court justices is “largely unaccountable to our democratic process.”
Brownback and many other Republicans also want to change how Supreme Court justices are selected, but it would require amending the state constitution.
A commission led by attorneys screens applicants for each vacancy to the high court and names three finalists. The governor must pick one, and there is no role for legislators.
