Will ruling shut down Kansas court system?
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A ruling by a Kansas judge last week appears to trigger a state law that declares funding for the courts to be “null and void.”
The ruling last Wednesday by Judge Larry Hendricks “raised the specter of a shutdown of courthouses statewide,” the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports. The Wichita Eagle and the Associated Press also have stories.
The funding law is viewed by some Democrats as payback for a Kansas Supreme Court decision that found education funding is inadequate under the state constitution. It provides that state funding for courts will be eliminated if judges overturn a 2014 law that gives the power to select chief judges to local courts rather than to the state supreme court.
Hendricks ruled that the chief-judge selection law violates a state constitutional provision giving the supreme court general administrative authority over all state courts.
Hendricks stayed his ruling to allow for an appeal by the state attorney general.
