2026 is an election year for Kansas, and it's a big one.

Coming up on KTWU, an IGI Election Special, where we'll analyze the upcoming August 4th vote on whether Kansas should change its constitution and elect its Supreme Court justices.

This program on KTWU is brought to you by the Carol Jory Foundation.

Hello, and welcome to a 2026 IGI election special.

I'm your host, Bob Beatty.

You may recall all eyes were on Kansas in the summer of 2022, when voters had to decide on a constitutional amendment on the issue of abortion.

And that vote shocked the country.

The nation will be watching again come August 4th as another constitutional amendment is on the ballot.

This time, it's the question of whether Kansas Supreme Court justices should be elected.

Before we get to analyzing this important amendment vote, let's review how the current system came to be.

Kansas used to have elections for Supreme Court justices, but if they got sick and resigned, then the governor would appoint them.

Well, that all changed because of some skullduggery.

In 1956, Governor Fred Hall lost the Republican primary for governor.

So he was going to be done, but he was not done.

Supreme Court Justice William Smith was sick and didn't want to resign, with an incoming Democratic governor in charge.

So Smith resigned on December 31st, 1956, and on January 3rd, 1957, Governor Hall resigned 11 days before his term was up.

That seemed a bit odd, but pay attention.

Lieutenant Governor John McCuish became governor and appointed Hall to the Supreme Court.

So this is probably the most famous judicial scandal in Kansas history.

It has wonderful names like the Triple jump, the triple play, the triple switch.

One historian simply called it both sleazy and genius.

So in 1958, the voters of Kansas changed the Constitution to the current system, which we'll discuss along with many other things with our panel of experts.

So let's meet them and get to it.

Well, I'm joined here by a great panel of experts to discuss this issue, starting with Doctor Alexandra Middlewood, an associate professor of political science at Wichita State University.

Bill Fiander, a lecturer at Washington University in political science and public administration.

And Carol Beier, who served on the Kansas Supreme Court from 2003 to 2020.

So thank you all for joining me, and I'm looking forward to figuring this all out.

Carol, I'm going to start with you, but everyone can jump in of course.

And I already explained a bit about the skullduggery around the triple play.

And so viewers have seen that.

So after that constitutional amendment in 1958, what system did Kansas put in place?

And tell us a bit about how that works.

Sure.

Kansas chose to follow the lead of its neighbor, state of Missouri and instituted a merit selection plan for its Supreme Court justices.

And at the time, court of appeals judges, as well.

The way the system works, the Supreme Court nominating commission is really the heart of it.

It's a group of nine people for laypersons who are appointed by the governor, and for lawyers who are elected by their peers in their congressional districts.

Those four laypeople also come from the four congressional districts.

And those appointments and elections take place in staggered years, so that an incoming governor, for example, can appoint only one person per year to the nominating commission.

Kind of sheds some of the possible politics that could be injected in that way.

It also guarantees some geographic diversity among the members of the nominating commission.

And finally, the the ninth person who serves on the nominating commission is also a lawyer who is elected statewide by people who are elected or, excuse me, admitted to the Kansas bar.

That's the nominating commission.

And that commission is responsible for advertising a vacancy on the court, accepting submissions from interested applicants.

Those submissions are not your typical job application.

They sometimes run as much as 100 pages.

They're quite searching.

And those are reviewed by the members of the commission.

And then the individual candidates are vetted, quite thoroughly.

I can guarantee you that those who submit their names, as we all do, would put the names of people to refer, them who are going to say flattering and lovely things about them.

The commission doesn't stop with that.

They call other people who may know about the candidate's background, experience, ethics, financial dealings, etc.. So there's a very searching vetting process.

Then the commission interviews all the candidates in a public meeting.

Any member of the public is welcome to attend the meeting.

They're also welcome to view it online because it's streamed live and archived as well.

So anyone who misses it can go back and listen to the interviews.

Then the commission members vote in open session.

They vote as many ballots as it takes to get to three top names to send to the governor.

Then there's a gubernatorial appointment after additional vetting by her office and interviews by her staff and herself.

And then finally, the third leg of the Stool of Merit selection in Kansas is retention elections.

So each member of the court, once that person is appointed and serves for a full year, must sit for a retention election in the next general election.

And at that point, all Kansans get to weigh in on whether they think that person should stay on the bench or be put to pasture.

And you went through this twice, right?

You fought.

That's correct.

Because at the time, I joined the Court of Appeals in 2000, which was under the Graves administration.

That same commission was used for Court of Appeals appointment.

That has since changed, but it's still the method we used to select our Kansas Supreme Court justices.

And were you, again, maybe not surprised, but sort of, in awe of all you had to do to get from A to Z, through this process?

Because it sounds very rigorous.

It was daunting.

It was daunting.

As I said, it's not just walking into each store at the mall and asking if they're hiring.

You know, it's a little bit more, searching than that.

It was daunting.

And I can tell you from experience that sitting in a room with nine people conducting a job interview is also a little bit outside most of our experience.

And what sort of questions?

I mean, we'll get to other things.

We don't want all of them.

But what sort of questions in that open hearing where you were questioned by the commission, were they asking you questions that may not have been on your written, questionnaire?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

In fact, the very first question I got the first time I went through the process was, tell us something about yourself we don't know from reading your papers.

So that was an interesting question, I thought.

There are lots of questions some of them go to experience.

Some of them go to your educational preparation.

One of the questions on the application itself that I always thought was pretty meaningful was to list five of your most significant cases as a practitioner.

And I thought it was always revealing about candidates as well as of me by the cases I chose.

And so I picked a variety of cases.

One was worth a lot of money.

Another one had to do with helping a school child who was trying to get services for disability.

So significant means different things to different people.

And I thought that was somewhat revealing about the person I was.

And how about the, gubernatorial interview?

So you said that each of the governor is going to pick out of a list of three of those three candidates than meets with the governor, and that you just walk in and the governor is sitting there and saying, well, and just sort of chatting, or is this like a formal, you don't have to give.

Of course it was personal, but no, that's okay.

It was, it was a little bit of both, I'd say.

Certainly it was formal, and and everyone in the room was well aware of the weight that the interview carried.

Just you and the governor or several people.

When I interviewed with Governor Graves clear back in 2000, 99, actually, it was at the end of the year.

It was just the governor.

Since then, I think the practice of most of the governor's has, has been to have an interview with staff first and then an interview with the governor.

And when I interviewed with Governor Sebelius, her chief counsel sat in the interview, he asked a very technical legal question, which was interesting.

I had a suspicion he might have written a law review article on it, but, it was technical.

The governor's, I think, as much as anything, kind of really wanted to get to know you.

And I remember very specifically with Governor Graves, we were both long distance runners.

And so when I came in the room, I told him the last time I'd seen him, he was passing me in a race, and I didn't appreciate it.

Is there anything you too would like to ask Carol, since we have her here about this process?

Because I can certainly have some more questions.

Well, I was going to ask you.

I mean, we heard about the process, and this is not something that just someone pulled off the shelf.

This seems very tailored to the state of Kansas yet.

You know, when we look at and this is something we hear from opponents of the system, is that we're the only one that that does.

This is the only state that has a bar assisted, heavy on the lawyers.

In that case.

It is a merit process as a merit, selection process, but that the the bar has a heavy or hand in this.

Well, any other state.

Is there any light you could shed on how how well, that that does or doesn't work in your opinion?

Well, first of all, I don't think it's completely accurate.

Okay.

I think dozens of states use versions of the merit selection process for good reason.

27 use don't elect, 27 and 28.

It's a little hard.

But but yeah.

So this one there is that ninth, vote, I guess.

Although I guess my.

Yeah, I don't want to get too much into this, but this idea that any group of people, whether it's, military generals or professors or lawyers, you know, forming a cabal, is always, I guess, a little bit much for me.

But anyway, the the lawyer aspect, do you know why that came into play?

Just because the idea of lawyers, would know a lot more what to ask?

Well, that's certainly true.

I mean, lawyers in a better position to ask about technical legal subjects or for that matter, just how to do the process of judging, because they've seen more of it in their day to day practices, what have you.

I guess there are a couple things that I think some inaccuracies and maybe suspicions that I think I should try to dispel.

First of all, lawyers are not bad people.

I'm always amazed that the people I introduced to who then follow up the introduction with I hate lawyers, and I always wonder how that how that's going to be the foundation for a lasting friendship.

But at any rate, you know, lawyers are like heart surgeons and, you know, the person who comes and does the plumbing at the house.

And lots of they do have a certain level of expertise.

And so our process takes that into account.

But no one should be mistaken.

That first of all, it's not the Kansas Bar Association, and it's self-selected members who place people on this commission.

It is all the lawyers in the state from all of the different communities in the state, who have a say in their district as to the person who's dedicated to that district and as as to the chair who's elected statewide.

So that I think is valuable, in having that legal expertise from all sectors of the state, people with all of lawyers are or members of the bar are voting on this nominee or, potentially on the person who will serve on the commission.

It's not a another select group of the bar.

No, it's doing that.

That's good.

That's one thing I wanted to dispel because many people reference the Kansas Bar Association.

They're simply mistaken.

The other thing is, I've heard this criticism that the lay people are kind of window dressing, that it's really just the lawyers who kind of decide all of these things, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Those lay people who are selected by the various governors over the years to serve on the nominating commission are not shrinking Violet.

They are selected in part for their ability to hold their own in a discussion with other professionals.

And I just heard an anecdote.

The other day about a former member of the commission who certainly doesn't qualify for the shrinking Violet label.

She attended one of the sessions for interviewing, and it was clear to her that one of the really high powered lawyers on the commission had a favorite that he was very interested in having make it into the three.

And she told that lawyer and the rest of the people in the room that the references weren't calling her back when she made calls, and that was the end of that candidacy.

She didn't have any trouble standing up to the lawyers in the room.

Let's get into this.

What's happening on August 4th?

This constitutional amendment and, the current system.

Carol, you had to be nonpartisan, correct?

Right.

You could not be a member of a political party.

Correct.

Well, you you can be signed up to vote in a primary, but other than you're voting, you're you are nonpolitical, nonpartisan, nonpartisan, nonpartisan.

So it's a sort of almost a 360 here to what is is being voted on, which could be an Uber, political, situation.

And so we're there's going to be if this passes, there would actually be elections for the Supreme Court justices.

So just to warm up this discussion, we're going to take a look at a couple TV ads from Wisconsin, 2025 Supreme Court, elections, just so viewers will know that if this passes, this is what they'll be seeing.

So let's take a look at a couple of those ads.

As head of criminal appeals, Susan Crawford had one job to keep a convicted rapist behind bars.

He had Crawford didn't bother filing the appeal in time.

Letting go.

You just walk free.

The victim, already scarred beyond measure, called Crawford's negligence utterly disgusting and traumatized by Crawford's disregard for justice.

Her criminal coddling record is an injustice to us all.

I'm asking that everyone get out and vote for a wonderful American patriot.

A tough on crime judge Fred Shimel, who stands for fair and impartial justice.

And he'll always back the blue.

If you support law and order in Wisconsin, Brad Schimel's the one to do it.

So, you know, I just showed those as examples, you know.

Yeah, I could have gone all over the place with these ads.

Alex.

What what happens when, Tell us about the idea of, politics and and Supreme Court, elections and also what happens in our races now with, with, with other officeholders that we've be seeing, if this were to pass.

Yeah.

So one of the important things to note about this constitutional amendment is that it doesn't lay out whether these races would be Partisan or nonpartisan, and it allows a future session of the legislature to decide that.

And so voters have very little information about what this would actually look like in practice in Kansas in terms of partisanship.

But we do know that when Supreme Court justices are elected by a popular vote, there's always some sort of partisanship at play.

So whether they are running as Partisan candidates or even if they're not, they're still usually seeking a party endorsement.

There's also the aspect of money and politics, and they have to campaign and get those finances from somewhere.

And a lot of the times that is political parties or organizations.

And so even if it is a nonpartisan race for this, we would still see partisan politics and politics in general really playing a large role.

And with that comes this question of judicial independence.

And are justices going to truly be independent if they are elected by partisan electors, if they are given money by partisan organizations or political parties?

Bill, I think you were telling me a few days ago about some studies that actually, you know, discussed this about judges in terms of the influence of, elections, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

There has been some research done on this issue.

Just as Alex was talking about, does the judges, justices vote really sway, to the campaign donors or the special interest of that donor?

And in, in, in the big, heavy election states, Illinois, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

I'm leaving Michigan and one other I'm leaving out they found predominantly there was a there was an absolute, detection in for those six states, justices siding more on, let's just call it big, big business, special interest types and and less on the individual that may have been harmed, discriminated against, scammed or whatever it may be.

And then there's research methods that go into that, that we're not going to get into.

But there's instances of that in Ohio.

They did this.

This is this is more like 15, 20 years ago.

But they, they they looked at the voting records, and one, one in particular, there was a, a set of justices that had ruled in favor of the right for you to sue your employee because you were injured, because of insurance campaigns and donations that came in a new a couple new justices came on, and then that actually got overturned with the new set of justices in place.

Thanks.

And and some part to the insurance industry pushing for, for those sort of things.

So, so you can go back and look at these, empirically, what's.

Yeah, what's interesting to me is Kansas does not have the initiative and petition process, like many states and what I hear, not just from any one political party, is, oh my goodness, if Kansas brought that in there up be all this money pushing, issues, you know, and a lot of it would be so-called dark money, this seems like that's exactly what would be happening.

And for viewers who don't know, dark money is literally money that goes into supporting a candidate or an issue in which you cannot find out who's writing the check and you can't.

Supreme court has made it pretty clear that you cannot trace it.

It's funneled through so many different interest groups.

So Carol, you know, go back in time.

How would you feel when you were in your job if you knew that in two years or something?

You might have no joke.

5 to $10 million being spent by someone or group that you didn't even know who they were running those kind of ads.

I mean, I don't know how you're going to answer this, but what would you feel about that, I guess, is my question.

The first thing that comes to my mind is, I'm not sure when I would have time to do my job.

Well, you think just from a purely practical point of view, if the amendment passes and justices have to run statewide, once they're retained in office after one year, then they sit every six years for retention.

If they if they need to raise the kind of money that we're talking about.

And I hate to say it, Bob, I think 5 million is a way under estimate.

I know, you all are aware, I'm sure that in Wisconsin, about $100 million was spent on one seat in 2025.

About 20 million of that came from one out of state billionaire.

And that's really what I think voters need to be aware of here.

As as you said, Alex, the amendment itself is silent on whether the races will be partisan or nonpartisan.

But it's very careful to remove all of those safeguards.

We currently have, Bob, on keeping justices nonpartisan.

I mean, literally, when you're serving now, you you can vote and that's it.

You can't support a candidate, you can't give money to candidates.

You can't campaign for anyone, including yourself.

Really.

Justices are very constrained in what they can do to prevail in a retention election.

So that takes money to run a statewide race.

It takes money, it takes contacts and I for one, as a litigant, I would hate to show up in court knowing that some particular special interests or some particular billionaire from inside or outside the state had supported the judge, and that that person was on the other side of my case.

We just have a few minutes left, but I want to talk about the politics of this.

And this is not Bob Beatty saying, oh, he's throwing abortion to this.

No, I'm going to actually quote from a major candidate for governor in Kansas.

I won't I won't name this candidate because that's not what this show is about.

But this candidate actually said that this is about abortion.

This candidate said electing would reverse Supreme Court decisions declaring limits on abortion unconstitutional and then, quote, the candidate said the solution in Kansas is that Supreme Court election.

Then that candidate said, but you can't go out then and say it because they'll say, if you, electors Supreme Court, you won't have any right to abortion anymore, unquote.

So this is not me saying that this is really tied to abortion.

The politics of that is that a thing?

Is this candidate wrong or is this is what is going on with the politics of this, that it's not really about populism and voting.

It's about one issue.

Alex.

There certainly has been a lot of discussion, in Kansas politics, about the right to abortion and the 2022 amendment, and the Supreme Court of Kansas making that decision previously.

And this would certainly be one way to ensure that there is a Supreme Court that could overturn, an abortion decision like the one that we saw, it seems likely that there are these issues that are spurring support for this change in the judicial system and I think it's fair to say that abortion is certainly going to be one of those.

And another candidate said, quote, for governor, if we elect our Supreme Court, they won't force you to spend money on schools, unquote.

So education.

So we got abortion.

Education is hot button issues for some are pushing this again, especially in a governor race.

Yeah.

I think you need to pull back the curtain a little bit, as I think we've tried to do here in states, it's not just about do you want to elect justices or not?

It's about what is the ballot question?

Not saying.

And and you've named a couple of the parties the legislature will have the control of whether this is partisan or not.

They'll have the control of drawing districts if they have a district, process.

And so, you know how that that has gone lately and then, filling vacancies, some people will have to step down from time to time.

How who is going to fill the vacancy?

Who's going to determine that incumbents have a huge advantage when you get in there.

And so this thing has more who's really has the power here I think is the question that should be on the ballot is, is is it the voters or are they really ceding, much of this power to the legislature?

I looked up the amendment bill that to your point, it said, quote, the rules applicable for such elections shall be prescribed by law, unquote, which means the legislature shall decide.

So I think in our discussion here, what I've learned the most is, a that it takes a lot of work to, to go through this current process, but be that the actual amendment is not really giving the voters something that they can really think about, which is that basic question is, do we want to elect Supreme Court justices?

But we know in modern elections, you know, how much will parties be involved, how much all the money and all that other sort of thing.

So we're out of time.

I thank you for your time, but I hope the viewers learned as much as I did about how this is all going to affect Kansas, and I appreciate it.

You've been watching an IGI 2026 election special.

Keep your eye out for our continued programing on this important election year for Kansas.

If you have any comments for us, please send us an email at issues@ktwu.org If you would like to view this program again or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at watch.ktwu.org.

For IGI, I'm Bob Beatty, thanks for watching.

For IGI, I'm Bob Beatty, thanks for watching.

This program on KTWU view is brought to you by the Carol Jory Foundation.