The Jefferson City drama last week was the cancellation of the Missouri chief justice’s annual “state of the judiciary” speech to a joint session of the legislature, a cancellation in response to a unanimous Missouri Supreme Court decision that enforced the Missouri Constitution’s rule that a bill must have only one subject.
The objection from some legislators — who kept the legislature from holding its joint session — was not that the unanimous court was wrong on the law, but that the court had the audacity to enforce the constitution and strike down a law that violated it.
The Missouri Constitution’s single-subject requirement does not exist in the U.S. Constitution, which puts no limits on how many unrelated subjects can be jammed into one bill, beautiful or not. Missouri legislators often are tempted to mimic their federal counterparts by passing omnibus bills that gather support by using a bill as a “Christmas tree” on which to hang various legislative ornaments to attract the votes needed to pass.
That can mean a legislator must decide whether to vote for a bill whose provisions the legislator disagrees with in order to get a provision he or she wants.
The Missouri Constitution, since 1875, has included the requirement, which today is expressed simply: “No bill shall contain more than one subject which shall be clearly expressed in its title.” Other provisions enforce this basic rule.
I have noticed over decades of observing the politics of judicial selection that legislators who pitch fits about the nonpartisan court plan — added by voters in 1940 to the Missouri Constitution — do not seem to represent the views of a majority of Missourians.
In 2012, the legislature proposed a ballot measure to give the governor the majority of appointments to the appellate judicial commission and to allow the governor to appoint lawyers as well as nonlawyers to the commission.
It was a bad idea, the result of people in Jefferson City not being able to distinguish the views of those who spend time in the Capitol from those who live their lives outside the greater Jefferson City area. The voters agreed. They said no.
The nonpartisan court plan gives the governor the power to name three nonlawyers to the appellate judicial commission and gives members of the Missouri Bar in the three courts of appeals districts the authority to select one lawyer from each district.
The chief justice — the judge who serves a two-year term in rotation — is the seventh member of the commission. When a vacancy occurs on an appeals court or the Supreme Court, the commission evaluates nominees and sends three names to the governor, who must choose from the list. If the governor does not act, the commission makes the appointment.
A judge must face a retention vote after serving for one year, and at the end of each term — 12 years for a Supreme Court judge — and must retire at age 70.
Since its adoption in 1940, Missourians have voted for measures strengthening the plan. By contrast, voters rejected a 1942 proposal referred by the General Assembly to end the plan and return to electing all judges. That lesson was reflected in the Constitutional Convention of 1944, which included the nonpartisan court plan in the state’s current Constitution adopted in 1945.
The most sensible reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision enforcing the single-subject rule is the suggestion by some legislators that they should obey the constitution when doing their work.
Another suggestion: If legislators want to pass big bills, beautiful or not, they could ask voters to change the constitution to make Missouri’s process more like Congress.
Good luck with that.
Michael A. Wolff is a retired judge and chief justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri, and a professor emeritus and dean emeritus of the St. Louis University School of Law. This commentary was originally published by the Missouri Independent.