Law Wise • 2016-17 (No. 2)

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PUBLISHED BY

LAW WISE OCTOBER 2016 • ISSUE 2

Editor: Ron Keefover Coordinators: Hon. G. Joseph Pierron Jr. • Anne Woods & Ryan Purcell, KBA staff

Greetings from the Kansas Bar Association (KBA). Welcome to this edition of Law Wise and the second edition of the 2016-2017 school year.

IN THIS ISSUE Kansas Judges, Justices at All Levels of Courts on Ballot............................. 1 Kids Voting Kansas Grows to 150,000 Students Voting in Mock Elections............... 4 New Kansas Courts Educational Website Unveiled........................................ 5 Survey Shows Small Percentage of Americans Think They Know A Lot About Country’s Founding Documents, But Support Their Basic Ideas................................................... 5 vOctober Buzz................................................ 6 Terrific Technology for Teachers....................... 6 Lesson Plan (6-8): The Right to Vote: Suffrage Today................. 7 Lesson Plan (9-12): Civic Engagement/Service: Learning Working Together.......................... 8 Lesson Plan (K-2): Elections and Voting: I Study the Candidates and Issues................ 9 iCivics: Can You Win the White House?........ 10 How to Subscribe to Law Wise...................... 10

Calendar of Events National Pro Bono Celebration Week

Oct. 23-29

Election Day

Nov. 8

Kansas Judges, Justices at All Levels of Courts on Ballot

W

hile the nation’s attention remains focused on the “he said, she said” election campaign for President, in Kansas there is a rare hotly contested race to decide whether five Justices of the Supreme Court and six Judges of the Court of Appeals should be kept for another term of office. This edition of Law Wise focuses on the November 8th judicial retention elections, including how and why such elections came into being in Kansas. On November 8, voters will be asked whether to retain Justices Lawton Nuss, Marla Luckert, Carol Beier, Dan Biles, and Caleb Stegall for another term, as well as Court of Appeals Judges Steve Leben, G. Joseph Pierron Jr., David Bruns, G. Gordon Atcheson, Karen Arnold-Burger, and Kathryn Gardner. Those votes are in addition to local judge races across the state, some of whom are running in partisan elections and others in retention votes. Over the years, such so-called retention elections largely have been without controversy except for a few cycles in which a small group dissatisfied with one or another court decision tried unsuccessfully to vote out one or more of the justices and judges. This year, an active campaign to turn out four of the five Justices (save Gov. Brownback appointee Justice Stegall) was launched based on decisions in several hot-button cases, including school finance, abortion, and the death penalty. Campaign committees on both sides of the debate have been formed, raising the interest level of this November’s non-gubernatorial election the highest since the merit selection of the Supreme Court was first adopted in 1958. Before that, the members of the Supreme Court ran for office in partisan elections, just as other statewide elected officials, typically without controversy or high concern by voters. That changed beginning with the defeat of Governor Fred Hall in the 1956 Republican primary by Topekan Warren Shaw, who lost in the general election to George Docking. Then in what came to be known as the political “triple play,” occurred when then-Chief Justice Smith resigned from the Supreme Court due to ill health on December 31. Lame duck Gov. Hall quickly resigned as governor on January 3, 1957, and Lieutenant Governor John McCuish became governor for the next eleven days. McCuish immediately appointed Hall to the newly vacated Supreme Court seat, McCuish’s only official act during his record shortest tenure as Governor of Kansas. While legal, these actions were considered unethical by politicians on both sides of the political aisle. (Continues on page 2)

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