Kansas City Star. December 26, 2022.
Editorial: Bill to impeach Kansas Supreme Court justices is just a new attack on abortion rights
At least one Kansas lawmaker, apparently unsatisfied with the verdict of the voters, wants to further curtail the authority of the state Supreme Court.
State Rep. Brett Fairchild, a Republican, has introduced a bill that would dramatically broaden the ability of the Legislature to impeach and remove justices of the court. It mirrors a similar measure introduced in the Senate in 2016 that died in a House committee.
The Kansas Constitution currently allows impeachment and removal of justices for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Fairchild’s bill would add to the list: a “breach of the public trust” would be impeachable, as would “attempting to subvert fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power” or “attempting to usurp the power of the legislative or executive branch of government.”
You can see where this is going. If passed, judges could be removed from office on the whim of any group of legislators who disapprove of a ruling. (It would still take a two-thirds vote of the state Senate to convict and remove a judge from office.)
Fairchild, and other lawmakers, want to reduce the Kansas Supreme Court to an unequal branch of government, stripping it of the ability to do anything other than ratify decisions by the Legislature and governor.
It is highly foolish, wrong and, dare we say it, probably unconstitutional. Legislators should quickly reject the proposal and refocus on the real business in Topeka next year.
They won’t do that, of course, because the sting of the voters’ abortion decision in August is still fresh. Fairchild makes no bones about this — the state’s court overstepped its authority when it found a fundamental abortion right in the Kansas Constitution, he says.
The decision “was clearly an act of judicial activism and an example of the Kansas Supreme Court unconstitutionally taking away power from the legislative branch,” he said in a mid-December Facebook post.
Kansans know the truth: The state Supreme Court gave abortion decisions to the people, and to women and their doctors. They said Rep. Fairchild and anti-abortion lawmakers could restrict that fundamental right for only the most narrowly-tailored reasons.
And Kansas voters resoundingly, overwhelmingly, firmly endorsed that framework at the polls in August. Given the chance to take abortion protections out of the state constitution, voters said no in a voice so loud and clear it stunned the nation.
Never forget: Anti-abortion zealots picked the August date for a vote. They wrote the language on the ballot. They had more than a year to prepare a campaign. They lost badly.
Now legislators may attempt to achieve through the back door what they could not at the front. They should not be allowed to do so.
Sadly, Fairchild’s bill may not be the only attempt to circumvent the voters’ voices on abortion. Legislative leaders say other abortion restriction bills may be proposed in the first weeks of next year’s session.
That would be tragic. Legislators have a long list of other concerns: tax policy, school funding, medical marijuana, Medicaid expansion, the water crisis. They should devote their time and attention to those issues, not matters the voters firmly settled at the polls.
We trust Kansas voters. We hope members of the Legislature can make the same statement in 2023.
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