The budget battle in Kansas has spilled over into the judicial branch. And as reported by The Atlantic Monthly, the state narrowly avoided disaster last week.
The state’s Republican leadership has long been frustrated with the powers of the Kansas Supreme Court. So last year, the legislature passed a law taking the power to appoint chief judges away from the Supreme Court and giving it to local judges. However, lawmakers added a provision that if the law was struck down, funding to the entire Kansas court system would be cut off.
Last Wednesday, the unthinkable happened. A federal court struck down the law. In a panic, the state’s attorney general successfully managed to have the ruling stayed. Had the stay not been granted, an independent branch of the state government would have ceased to exist. Kansas’s courts remain open . . . for now.
