Gavel Grab

James Harris, the leader of a challenge to the way Missouri selects its judges, has brought an ethics complaint against the Missouri Bar.

According to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, the complaint alleges the Bar, created by the state Supreme Court, should educate–not advocate for or against a political position–and has spent large sums to campaign against proposals by Harris’ group, ShowMe Better Courts.

Skip Walther, the Missouri Bar president, replied that the complaint was “replete with inaccuracies” and he did not have any knowledge of the Bar spending money to oppose the initiative of Harris’s group.

Critics are working for a ballot initiative to replace Missouri’s system for selecting appellate and state Supreme Court judges with competitive elections. You can read more about the controversy in Gavel Grab, and you can read about appointment and retention systems like Missouri’s on Justice at Stake’s issues page about them.