KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -
We're closing in on the final days until the election and there's another ballot question to know about. Amendment 3 could affect how judges end up on the Missouri Supreme Court.
A tested and failed judicial system in Missouri is up for a vote more than 160 years after the state abolished it.
Amendment 3 would give governors the authority to appoint every member of the panel which chooses state Supreme Court Judges. It's a system Missouri once had in place in the early 1800s.
"By 1850 the courts were filled with judges that were cronies of the governor," Pat Starke, president of the Missouri Bar Association, said.
Currently, a panel of lawyers, laypeople and one Supreme Court Justice vets and recommends three candidates before the governor chooses one.
"Power is not concentrated. It's spread out, which seems to be the fundamental principal of American government. You spread power out because if, you concentrate it, you get bad things," Starke said.
Sen. Jim Lembke and Rep. Stanley Cox introduced the bill which was first backed by Better Courts for Missouri. The organization has since pulled its support because it disapproved of the ballot language.
Lembke and Cox did not return KCTV5's messages Wednesday.
Kansas City yards are littered with "No on Amendment 3" signs. Starke said that's because there are virtually no supporters of the amendment.
"The whole point of a judicial system that's separate and equal is that it's truly separate and equal - that it's not beholden to the governor or to the Legislature or to any particular element other than people of Missouri," Starke said.
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