God save the republic
Why Do So Many of Us Keep Giving Away Our Vote? I still don’t get it. Today Kansans had a chance to take back the power to choose their own Supreme Court justices. Instead, voters overwhelmingly said no. They chose to keep the current system where a nominating commission—dominated by lawyers chosen by other lawyers—picks the short list, and the governor picks from that list. The people only get a yes-or-no retention vote later, which almost never removes anyone. In other words, we voted to keep letting someone else decide who sits in judgment over us. I keep asking the same question: Why would free citizens ever choose to abdicate their own authority? Why hand your vote, your voice, your free will over to a small group of insiders when you have the chance to exercise it yourself? This wasn’t some obscure technical change. It was a straightforward question: Do the people of Kansas get to elect the justices of the highest court in the state, or do we continue letting a closed process do ...