Amendment 40 a terrible idea

Judicial term limits don't solve any problems

Published September 27, 2006 at midnight

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Amendment 40, which would impose term limits on Colorado's appellate judges, is an easy call. We urge its defeat.

The amendment would force five of the seven Supreme Court justices, and seven of the 19 intermediate Court of Appeals judges, from the bench in January 2009. That would give an extraordinary power of appointment to the next governor.

The initiative is being pushed by former state Senate President John Andrews. He is unhappy with several recent court decisions but denies that pique is driving the initiative. If that's the case, however, it's hard to understand why he thinks a new set of judges would be any more likely to issue rulings more congenial to his views.

The state court system, while hardly perfect, has been functioning well for 40 years in its current incarnation and the amendment wouldn't improve it.

What the initiative would do is needlessly shorten the terms currently served by appellate judges. Supreme Court justices, who now serve two years before facing a statewide retention vote followed by a vote every 10 years thereafter, would be limited to the provisional two-year term plus two four-year stints.

So would judges on the Court of Appeals, who now face retention votes every eight years after the initial two-year period.

Although the current eight- and 10-year terms are theoretically unlimited, in fact the state Constitution already imposes a very real term limit: All judges must retire at 72. Since only mature lawyers and lower court judges are generally picked for the appellate benches, they don't get to hang on forever like some federal judges, who enjoy lifetime appointments.

Most appellate judges don't serve that long anyway. A Colorado Supreme Court justice makes $123,000 a year and appellate judges about $118,000. Not starvation wages, to be sure, but most could make more in private practice. They become judges in part as an act of public service.

A court study has shown that the average term for a justice is 8.69 years and for an appellate judge 7.57 years, slightly under the proposed limits.

Unlike Colorado's original term limits law, which upon passage gave elected state officials eight more years no matter how long they'd already served, this measure is retroactive.

It would require appellate judges who have already served 10 years or more to leave the bench in January 2009 and require those eligible to serve another term to appear on the November 2008 ballot for retention. And that's even if they'd previously been approved for a longer term.

It could be worse. At least Andrews isn't trying to restore the direct election of judges. That went away in the 1960s, and the current system works better. It doesn't, as proponents claim, take all the politics out of judge selection, but at least it minimizes it.

Vote no on Amendment 40.

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