A pair of proposed ballot initiatives to term-limit Colorado appellate and Supreme Court judges pose no moral dilemma for us of choosing the lesser of two evils: Both deserve to go down in flames.
Initiative 75 would term-limit appellate judges and justices to 12 years, and No. 90 would restrict them to 10 years and apply retroactively. They are a toxic attack on an independent judicial system that works extremely well.
The driving force behind the initiatives is former state Sen. John Andrews – who has never forgiven the Supreme Court for striking down his illegal 2003 “midnight gerrymander,” the most ignominious legislative stunt of recent memory.
The legislature is supposed to set congressional district boundaries once a decade after the census. But it failed to do so in 2002 after deadlocking between a Democratic-controlled Senate and a Republican House – forcing a Denver court to draft a plan that produced one of the nation’s most politically balanced battlegrounds in the new 7th Congressional District.
After Republican Rep. Bob Beauprez barely squeaked by in the 7th District in 2002, Andrews and his GOP fellow travelers attempted to redraw the boundaries yet again to create five “safe” GOP fiefdoms, acting during the closing hours of the legislature. The state Supreme Court overturned the ploy. Ever since, Andrews has denounced “activist judges,” though of course it was Andrews himself who was playing the activist role. As Senate president, Andrews tried to get judicial term limits referred to the voters in 2004, but the bill was killed.
Appeals court judges are appointed by the governor to eight-year terms, and justices to 10-year terms. The voters decide on subsequent terms in retention elections. Retirement is mandatory at age 72, unlike lifetime federal judiciary appointments. Andrews’ proposal for even more restrictions is, well, we’ll be polite here, unnecessary.
“All these initiatives are just crazy,” said former Justice Jean Dubofsky. “What they’ll do is that people won’t apply to be judges until they’re pretty old … . It would have a big impact on who applies.”
Shortening justices’ terms to four years is a bad idea, Dubofsky says. “People deciding those cases won’t feel as if they have any independence at all,” she said. Terms should be long enough so that judges won’t feel compelled to be “in lockstep with people who are on the ballot all the time.”
Term limits could unseat judges appointed by Republican Gov. Bill Owens as well as those named by his Democratic predecessor. That doesn’t worry Andrews: “The problems of judges making law instead of interpreting it unfortunately transcends party labels of how the judge was registered before going on the bench or which party happened to appoint that judge.”
Andrews doesn’t want an independent judiciary. He wants judges who will kowtow to statehouse partisans whose illegal acts would not otherwise see the light of day.
