Blake: Courts playing right into hands of term-limits advocates

Saturday, June 17, 2006

It looks as though the strongest allies John Andrews has in his drive to put term limits on appellate court judges are the appellate court judges themselves.

He thought he'd died and gone to heaven Monday when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-2 that the (basically symbolic) initiative that would prohibit illegal immigrants from getting most state services couldn't go on the November ballot because it violated the single-subject rule.

"The justices gave us an incredible gift- wrapped outrage," said Andrews, former president of the state Senate.

He was still basking in the glow of that decision when the Colorado Court of Appeals came along Thursday to do its bit. One of its three-judge panels apparently authorized common-law marriages between boys as young as 14 and girls as young as 12.

Free media provided by the very group he's targeting! It doesn't get better than that. But he's going to need it because his group, Limit the Judges, didn't start collecting signatures until Friday.

He needs more than 100,000 signatures in about 50 days if he's going to turn in 67,829 valid ones by the Aug. 7 deadline.

"We really have to sprint but we'll be sprinting with the wind at our backs," Andrews said.

He has retained a signature-gathering firm and has the money to pay it, but he said he's also mobilizing volunteers, some of whom may come over from Defend Colorado Now. That was the group promoting the now defunct illegal-immigrant initiative.

Statewide candidates who petition onto the ballot have to collect their signatures from throughout the state. But there's no distribution requirement for ballot initiatives. "We could get 'em all within a one-mile radius of (Chief Justice) Mary Mullarkey's office," Andrews said confidently.

Andrews' proposal would limit judges on the two appellate courts to three terms of four years each. There are no term limits now and supreme court justices have to go before the voters only once every 10 years. The court of appeals requires a retention vote every eight years.

But the first retention vote comes at the second general election after appointment. That "provisional" term would count as a full four years under Andrews' proposal, even if it was barely two.

Andrews maintains that the problem is that voters retain "99 percent" of all judges as they come up.

That's close to the truth, but it's not the whole truth. Some judges resign if the Judicial Performance Commission is going to recommend publicly that they not be retained. But it's hard to tell who they are because of the genteel politics of retention.

If the judge promises the commission he won't stand for retention, the commission doesn't publicize its recommendation.

Then there's the Judicial Discipline Commission which tells some judges to go away now because of their bad behavior. But that commission operates in complete secrecy and you don't know whom they're disciplining or why, before or after the fact.

So lots of judges leave early, all claiming it's time to "pursue a new career" or to "spend more time with the family." But only in an undetermined number of cases is that the main reason.

It's egregious judicial protectionism and I've sometimes thought that the only way to eventually force some sunlight on resignations is to run this standard paragraph in every story:

"The court system refused to confirm or deny that Judge Notlest Yebejudged is leaving the bench because he was found soliciting bribes from attorneys appearing in his court."

Here's another interesting aspect of Andrews' proposal: It would be retroactive.

When term limits for legislators and elected officials were established by voters in 1990, it was made prospective. The eight years didn't start running until 1992.

But Andrews' proposal says "Anyone who has served 10 years or more at one appellate court level shall not be eligible for another term at that level."

What's more, there's no reference to "consecutive" terms. Three terms is a lifetime limit on an appellate court. At the legislature members can, and sometimes do, try to float from House to Senate and back again, eight years in each stage.

By the way, Andrews was as outraged as any other Republican about the high court's finding of a second subject in the immigration proposal.

He said that if Miller Lite had brought its old slogan before the court - "Tastes Great! Less Filling!" - the justices would have concluded it must have been for two different beers and thrown it out.

But he cheerfully admitted the court treated him right when his proposal was protested. Attorney Mark Grueskin filed a complaint on behalf of several individuals, not on alleged single-subject violations but on a claim that the title didn't accurately reflect the proposal.

"There was speculation that they'd run the clock out and sit on this," Andrews said, but in late May the court rejected Grueskin's arguments.

"They played it fair and square and my hat's off to them for that," Andrews said.

By the way, there's a new "527" organization registered with the Internal Revenue Service called Judicial Accountability LLC. It proclaimed as its purpose "to educate the public about the role of judges in our society." It sounds like it might be involved with this initiative.

The registered agent is Scott Shires - whom Andrews also identified as the treasurer of his group, Limit the Judges.

But 527s aren't supposed to coordinate with campaigns. Shires didn't return inquiries to his office on this issue.

blakep@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5119.