-By Warner Todd Huston
It is now being reported that billionaire liberal activist George Soros is the bankroll behind the “nonpartisan” attacks on Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s new judicial selection plan.
Two organizations in Kansas have led the charge against the Republican Governor’s proposal and both claim to be nonpartisan. But the two groups, Justice at Stake and the Kansas chapter of the League of Women Voters, are receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from two of extremist Sorros’ liberal organizations in a similar way that Colorado’s liberal organizations implemented the “Colorado model.”
Brownback has been supporting changes in the state’s process of appointing judges. Previously Kansas judges were chosen by a commission made up of lawyers who are unaccountable to voters but Brownback has been pushing the adoption of the federal model where judges are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the State Senate.
The Governor signed legislation in March to change the system for nominating appeals judges and is also interested in a constitutional amendment that would do the same for State Supreme Court justices.
The Kansas Watchdog looked into the source of funding to those groups supporting the lock that the Kansas Bar Association has on appointing judges and found that they have received “hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions” of dollars from several Soros owned liberal organizations.
Since 2006, JAS has been awarded more than $2.4 million from the Open Society Institute, a non-profit which Soros founded in 1993. OSI also gave $555,000 to the League of Women Voters education fund, which serves as a 501 (c)(3) for the national organization.
Furthermore, the league’s education fund has received more than $180,000 from the Soros-backed Tides Foundation since 2004.
The Watchdog also discovered that the Topeka Capital-Journal had this information six months ago but refused to publish it because it is “old news.”
With the change to the appointment process, the State of Kansas joins such states as California and Massachusetts as well as the federal government in the way judges are advanced to the bench.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.