Kansas, like California, is following the national trend to tie state judicial reform to funding, leading the Wichita Eagle to editorialize against the changes as eroding court independence. The newspaper writes that “Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton R. Nuss warned this was coming, objecting in an Eagle commentary last month to ‘the diffusion of the unified court system’s centralized authority in exchange for money to keep courts open.’
The funding-linked legislation, pending a decision by Gov. Sam Brownback, would allow the chief judge of each of the state’s 31 judicial districts to submit and control his own budget. The Eagle fears that “… the new legislation also allows judges to select the chief judge for their own district court, further eroding the Supreme Court’s authority.”
You can read a detailed argument on the Kansas argument here.