They’ve done it again.
Just say ‘no’ again!

Political bigwigs and billionaires once again are trying to trick us into voting for something we don’t want or need.

Just as they mischaracterized the mislabeled “Value Them Both” amendment a few elections back, they’re mischaracterizing a constitutional amendment about the state supreme court on Tuesday’s ballot.

They’re trying to make us think the only way we’ll ever be able to vote on who should serve as a supreme court justice is by voting “Yes” on the amendment they’re trying to sneak through.

They’ve even timed it to come up during a primary election, when only the most intense of partisans show up at the polls.

Truth is, we’ll get to vote on which justices should continue to serve on the court whether we choose “Yes” or “No” on the amendment.

The difference is, if we say “Yes,” we’ll be handing the most politicized group in the state a blank check to do whatever it wants with selection of the people we trust to render fair and impartial judgments in the most important cases of our time.

Kansas’ current system of selecting justices was a direct response to a scandal in the 1950s that attempted to politicize the court. It was a reform that made Kansas a model for states wanting independent jurists who would judge each case on its merits and the rule of law, not on political prejudices or campaign promises.

A “Yes” vote in next week’s election will remove 635 carefully chosen words from the constitution and replace them with 95 that say only that how we elect justices will be “provided by law.” In other words, instead of having to follow a very specific procedure locked into the constitution, legislators could do whatever they want — and change their minds whenever the mood strikes them, essentially making them, not the court, the state’s ultimate legal authority.

A “Yes” vote will allow them to transform supreme court elections into politically motivated mud-slinging contests fueled by big-money donations — just as their own elections are.

Supreme court candidates would be able to seek contributions from billionaires in exchange for promises to rule in their favor. They could contribute to political campaigns, serve as party officers, and otherwise mire themselves not in the rule of law but in the rancor of politics.

Thoughtful voters saw through legislators’ attempts to deceive them with “Value Them Both.” Now legislators are trying to overturn what voters said in that election and seize control of what should be an independent judiciary, as envisioned by our founding fathers.

Our vote on selecting supreme court justices may be the single most important ballot we’ll ever cast.

A “Yes” vote would turn the court into yet another partisan circus in which rulings are for sale to the highest bidder.

A “Yes” vote would rip apart a system that for more than 60 years has provided separation of powers and checks and balances that democracy depends upon. In its stead all we would get would be yet more dirty politics and influence peddling.

A lot of politicians these days are urging a “Yes” vote precisely because it would give them unwarranted additional power or because other politicians and donors they are beholden to demand it.

If you want to keep our judges free from such influences, vote “No” Tuesday.

But if you still aren’t sure, ask yourself a simple question. If how we select the state’s top judges is so bad, why are we not seeking to change a similar system we use to select all other judges in the state?

Do you even know what political party our district court judges lean toward? Shouldn’t they be ruling based on law, not politics? Why go after only supreme court justices?

The answer is that the supreme court has made several rulings that block the legislature from curtailing women’s rights and that require the state to provide money for the education of all students, including those with special challenges who might need extra help.

This amendment isn’t about granting people a right to vote on justices. We already have that right. It’s about trying to overturn specific court rulings that legislative bigwigs who want to control everything didn’t like.

The political bias that a “Yes” vote would create is precisely what sponsors of the amendment are after. A “No” vote reaffirms our support for keeping politics out of courtrooms.

— ERIC MEYER