Petition campaign launched to add Cole County to Nonpartisan Court Plan

If enough people sign the petitions, Cole County voters next year would be asked to decide whether to add the county's 19th judicial circuit to the list of Nonpartisan Plan counties in the state.

If voters approve, they would end the partisan election of circuit and associate court judges in the county.

A group calling itself "Cole Countians to Preserve Fair and Impartial Courts" said the process "has begun" to circulate petitions and collect "approximately 4,000 signatures needed for the measure to appear on the November 2016 ballot."

The Missouri Constitution requires valid signatures from the county's registered voters, equal to at least 10 percent of the total number of votes cast in the county for governor in the last governor's election - or 36,869 total votes cast in 2012.

"Now is the time for Cole Countians to send a message that politics do not belong in the courtroom and that we will not allow our courthouse to be sold to the highest bidder," Edward "Chip" Robertson, honorary co-chair of the committee and a former Missouri Supreme Court chief justice, said in the news release.

Marc Ellinger, a Jefferson City lawyer and former Cole County presiding commissioner, said Monday he's against the proposal.

"It's a terrible idea," Ellinger said. "First of all, right off the bat, it disenfranchises all Cole County voters. ... Why would we want to take them away?

"They work."

Robertson pointed out the Nonpartisan Plan still allows voters to decide if a judge should be "retained" in office . But Ellinger said that's not as good as being able to compare candidates and vote for the one you like best.

Sharon Naught, the other honorary co-chair for the Cole Countians to Preserve Fair and Impartial Courts committee, said in the news release: "After the deplorable actions from an out-of-state political action committee in the 2014 elections, it is critical that we move to the Nonpartisan Court Plan to protect our courthouse and our local judges from these attacks."

In last year's contest between incumbent Democrat Pat Joyce and Republican challenger Brian Stumpe, the Washington, D.C.-based Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) spent $300,000 on a campaign to beat Joyce.

The RSLC gave $100,000 directly to Stumpe, and spent another $200,000 on a television and postcard advertising campaign against Joyce, raising questions about some of her previous court cases.

"Cole County citizens can prevent another attack from outsiders by joining the Nonpartisan Court Plan - an option that has been used by some counties in Missouri for 75 years," Robertson said in the news release.

But, countered Ellinger, the argument isn't fair.

"Apparently, they're creating a problem - i.e., money was spent from outside the community that didn't work because the voters didn't go for that option," he explained. "Why is that a problem?

"My argument would be, that influence didn't work, did it? Cole County voters are not bought or sold."

Although once claiming a conservative Democrat majority, Ellinger said, Cole County now is "a Republican county. And we voted to re-elect a Democrat judge - even though the Republican candidate had tons and tons of money, mostly raised from outside or independently spent from outside, that was spent in his favor in the race."

An IRS report in early December showed that Missouri billionaire Rex Sinquefield gave $300,000 to the RSLC in October - but the political committee always said there are no direct connections between money they receive and how they decide to spend it.

Ellinger, who has represented Sinquefield in several cases, said Monday: "I'm not speaking on his behalf, or anyone else's - I'm speaking personally.

"I was not involved in any of that decision-making, either in advance or after - so, I don't really have any personal knowledge of it."

Robertson said, in an interview: "No plan is perfect. What we're trying to is come up with the plan that is the most perfect - that will preserve justice, that will make the courts the fair and impartial arbiters of disputes.

"We have that in Cole County now but - over the course of the last few elections - it's been clear that other people want to come in and hijack Cole County, for purposes that have nothing to do with justice."

The completed petitions must be turned in to the secretary of state's office by early September 2016 - at least 90 days before the November general election.