To the far right and the radical left, presidential political races matter mainly because of the office’s role in picking Supreme Court Justices. Because of their lifetime tenures, nothing impacts the culture wars more than who sits on that Court.
On his first chance, President Bush replaced Chief Justice Rehnquist with Judge John Roberts (who was so perfect a duplicate of his predecessor that I wondered if he wasn’t actually the first example of human cloning).
Then to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the President tried to promote from within by selecting his own White House Counsel—Harriet Miers. But the legal conservatives in the Federalist society and conservative pundits started taking shots at Ms. Miers for not really being a conservative.
Did my conservative brethren honestly believe that the President was unclear on Ms. Miers’ views on important issues? Maybe, thought the White House, someone needed to vouch for her. So leading Christian conservatives James Dobson and Pat Robertson (after apparently speaking with Karl Rove) endorsed Ms. Meirs. That was supposed to be the “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” to us conservatives that Ms. Miers was one of us and we should calm down.
But in classic Goldwaterian style (i.e., we’d rather be “Right” than win), the conservative pundits wouldn’t drop it. The Democrats smelled blood and came up with the cleverest way to kill Ms. Miers’ nomination: they spoke well of her. And if Democrat Senators Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein liked her, then she couldn’t be what the conservatives had fought for. So the conservatives started complaining that she wasn’t qualified (as if serving as White House Counsel wasn’t a fair indication that she was a talented lawyer), and she withdrew herself from consideration.
Now, our own Governor Matt Blunt should take a lesson from the President’s misstep in judicial selection: make sure your own base thinks your pick is on your team.
Because of our growing population, St. Charles County is scheduled to get a new judge. But the legislature had to agree to fund it. And at the eleventh hour during the budget process, St. Charles State Senator Chuck Gross (Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee) saw to it that appropriations would find their way to fund the new position.
So in January, Governor Blunt will have the opportunity to appoint a new Associate Circuit Judge here in St. Charles County. But according to the Republican rumor mill, Chuck Gross figures that since he funded the position, he should get to pick the nominee.
Now Governor Blunt has already been very good to Senator Gross. Senator Gross’ good friend, Julie Eckstein, was appointed Director of the Department of Health and Senior Services at the Senator’s request. And the Senator’s wife is reportedly drawing a salary from one of the largest Motor Vehicle Licensing Offices in the state.
But Senator Gross’ state-sponsored “friends and family” rewards program may not be cashed out yet. Senator Gross is reportedly pushing to force the Governor to appoint his cousin, Rick Zerr, to the new bench.
Now, Rick Zerr used to be a judge here in St. Charles County. But when he served as an elected judge, he ran as a DEMOCRAT.
It gets worse. Rick Zerr’s wife is the Circuit Clerk for the St. Charles Court. The judges supervise the Circuit Clerk. So we have a nepotism question in husband being in charge of wife.
It gets worse. Rick Zerr wants the job because when he was on the bench before, he fell just short of getting the twelve years time in service to qualify for the judicial pension system in this state. Governor Blunt’s appointment (which would last a year before the next election) would qualify Zerr for the pension. And the rate of the pension would be set based off the current judges’ salary, which is much higher than it was when Rick Zerr served. So Senator Gross is not just trying to get his cousin a job for a year: he is getting his cousin a pension worth a fortune.
It gets worse. When he was on the bench, Judge Rick Zerr got in trouble. His court clerks embezzled a bunch of money from his court—$195,000. The Missouri Supreme Court thought Judge Zerr had been negligent in failing to supervise the clerks. The Supreme Court suspended Zerr for three weeks. Hey you don’t suppose that those missing three weeks is the reason that Zerr doesn’t already have his twelve years for the pension, do you?
It gets worse. Virtually every time Governor Carnahan and Governor Holden considered appointing someone to a St. Charles judicial vacancy, Zerr was on the Democrats’ short list. But it seems that the Democrat Governors always balked at appointing Zerr given his ethical challenges. I hate to think that Governors Carnahan and Holden set a higher ethical bar for judicial nominees than Governor Blunt.
And finally, it gets worse—much worse. When Matt Blunt ran for Governor, he made political hay off Governor Holden appointing Holden’s buddy Senator Ken Jacob to the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission. Remember, Holden appointed Jacob for a couple weeks so that Jacob could get his pension based off a much higher salary, thus scoring thousands more in retirement benefits from the public treasury. Candidate Blunt rightly criticized the practice and promised that he wouldn’t engage in similar shenanigans. Will Governor Blunt allow his relationship with Senator Gross to cause him to back slide on that pledge?
Justice may be blind but she is politically savvy. And so is the Republican base in St. Charles County. Recent national polling shows that Matt Blunt has the highest disapproval rating (61%) of any Governor not embroiled in criminal investigations. Upsetting his conservative base by appointing to the bench an ethically-challenged DEMOCRAT in a scam to enrich a key Senator’s family with a taxpayer pension may prove to be the proverbial nail in his political coffin. By comparison, the Miers nomination doesn’t smell quite so bad.
