Please sign your name to this petition and pass it along to other Missourians.

Let our leaders know you do not support the lawyer-dominated Missouri Plan's secrecy and lack of accountability.

This past Saturday, the Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial (which can be found here) in response to many comments that had been received regarding the American Bar Association’s recent decision to endorse the expanded use of “merit selection” plans in states and a similar plan to be used at the national level. In this editorial, they pointed to the difficulties that Missouri’s supposed “merit” plan has caused, specifically that lawyers have used the lack of public accountability for the Appellate Judicial Commission to force the Governor to choose a judge of their choice.

Not only have trial attorneys abused the system to force judges into the Missouri Supreme Court, they have used the “non-partisan” and “merit-oriented” nature of the system (as it was originally envisioned) as a shield every time they have been attacked for their actions and every time that the people call for reform. What these attorneys won’t admit is that the Missouri Plan is no longer non-partisan and it is no longer a system for choosing judges by merit. Trial attorneys ruined that long ago when they began to use the system for their own personal gain and to advance their own political agenda.

Missouri needs reform. The Missouri Plan doesn’t work, and a national version of a “merit selection” plan would only expand the corruption that already exists. The people of this state deserve a transparent process with some measure of accountability for bad decisions or corrupt actions in order to keep trial attorneys and interest groups from hand-picking judges behind citizens’ backs. We need a judiciary we can have confidence in, one that knows when to call a ball and when to call a strike.

The time to make important improvements to the Missouri Plan for selecting judges is NOW. Please Get Involved and restore checks and balances in Missouri.

Go here to sign our simple online petition.

And be sure to use this handy form to send your legislators a letter.