If you were going to reform the medical profession, would you get rid of your most experienced doctors?
If you wanted to improve education, would you tell teachers with more than 10 years of classroom experience to hit the road because a breath of fresh air was needed?
Of course not. By that same rationale, Amendment 40, which would limit Colorado’s most senior judges to 10 years on the bench, is equally wrongheaded. Voters ought to summarily shoot it down on Nov. 7.
Beyond the foolhardiness of stripping the judiciary of its most seasoned judges, the amendment is a blatantly political maneuver by former state Senate president John Andrews, a Republican who wants to punish judges whose opinions he disagrees with.
One particularly telling provision of the proposal is that it would apply retroactively. The measure would take effect in 2009 and would strip the Colorado Supreme Court of five of its seven members – all appointees of former Gov. Roy Romer. The Colorado Court of Appeals would lose seven of its 19 members.
Andrews has been pounding the public speaking circuit on behalf his attempt to diminish judicial independence. He has called them imperial jurists and said they are motivated by politics. We don’t think that’s true of the judges, but we certainly believe it sums up Andrews pretty neatly.
It should go without saying, but we’re inclined to say it anyway: Just because you don’t agree with a decision, that doesn’t make a judge imperial or political.
Judges are chosen by merit, unlike legislators who are elected in a political process. And judges can be removed if they’re derelict in their duty. Beyond that, the measure would give a politician – whoever is governor in 2009 – the ability to ideologically pack the Colorado Supreme Court.
Bob Miller, a former Colorado U.S. Attorney under President Reagan (and a three-term Weld County district attorney), recently pointed out a lesson from history. He recalled how President Franklin Roosevelt nearly 70 years ago sent Congress a plan to reorganize the judiciary that was criticized by Republicans as an effort to pack the court with justices sympathetic to his initiatives. If court-packing was wrong then, how could it be right now? It’s not.
We hope voters will honor the Constitution by keeping in mind that an independent judiciary is a keystone of our enduring democracy. We urge a “no” vote on Amendment 40.
