Missouri’s “Nonpartisan” Court Plan Isn’t Neutral. It’s Unaccountable.
Missouri’s “Nonpartisan” Court Plan Isn’t Neutral. It’s Unaccountable.
Missouri adopted the so-called “Nonpartisan” Court Plan in 1940. The goal was straightforward: reduce overt political pressure in judicial selection by replacing partisan judicial elections with a commission-based appointment system followed by retention votes.
At the time, reformers argued this “merit selection” model would protect judicial independence and elevate qualifications over politics.
Eighty-five years later, one thing is clear:
The Missouri Plan didn’t remove politics from the judiciary.
The Accountability Tradeoff
Every decision in life involves tradeoffs.
The real debate is not independence versus politics.
It’s about to whom the judiciary is accountable.
Under the Missouri Plan, judicial nominating commissions screen applicants and send a shortlist to the governor. The governor must appoint from that list. Voters then weigh in only through retention elections, where judges run unopposed and are rarely removed.
That structure significantly limits direct voter influence.
“The so-called Missouri Plan or ‘merit selection’ is the least effective method of judicial selection.”
Americans For Prosperity
The question is not whether judges should be independent. Of course they should be. The question is whether the public should have a meaningful role in selecting those who interpret and apply the law.
And the stakes are not abstract. Missouri court outcomes have real ideological consequences.
“Nonpartisan” Does Not Mean Neutral
Supporters of the Missouri Plan often argue that it removes politics from the process. But that claim doesn’t hold up.
“Yet merit selection does not remove politics from the judicial selection process; it merely drags politics out of the public spotlight . . . and to the detriment of public accountability.”
Heritage Foundation
Rather than voters weighing in openly, influence flows through professional commissions and organized legal interests. That does not mean politics disappears.
It just reflects the politics of a smaller group of people.
The Missouri Plan constrains elected executives while empowering un-elected and unaccountable commissions. By law, the majority of the commission members come from current judges and the Missouri Bar Association.
Retention Elections and the Illusion of Oversight
Supporters of the Missouri Plan point to retention elections as proof of voter control.
In practice, only three judges have been removed since 1940.
These are up-or-down votes without challengers. Voters are not choosing between competing judicial philosophies or interpretations of law. They are simply deciding whether to retain a sitting judge whose initial selection they did not meaningfully influence, in an election where almost no funds are spent on voter education.
This is not robust democratic oversight.
“Commission-based judicial selection . . . is the method of judicial selection that is least-accountable and most prone to capture by the liberal trial bar.”
Judicial Crisis Network
Reform Is Not Radical
The Missouri Plan was adopted in a different era, when the legal profession was smaller and public expectations were different. It may have addressed problems of its time. But no governmental structure should be immune from evaluation.
The current system meaningfully limits voter influence, concentrates screening power in commissions dominated by legal elites, and produces near-automatic retention elections.
Reform is responsible.
The debate over judicial selection is ultimately a debate about who holds power.
Should the voters have the power to choose judges, either directly or through their elected representatives?
Or should legal elites have the power to choose judges who reflect their own ideological commitments at the expense of Missourians?
This is the question Missouri will have to grapple with in the next few years.
Andy Bakker
Executive Director
Liberty Alliance USA