By Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Former Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss joined about 50 counterparts around the country to establish the Alliance of Former Chief Justices, a nonpartisan group dedicated to promoting the rule of law and judicial independence.
In a conversation for the Kansas Reflector podcast, Nuss outlined the mission of the new alliance and talked about threats he faced before retiring from the bench in 2019.
“The alliance is designed to repair whatever damage there may have been done to the rule of law in the United States, and we’re going to try to repair that by speaking on podcasts such as this, giving speeches, writing op-eds, aligning with some civic organizations and giving presentations to remind people about our three branches of government and how they all work,” Nuss said.
Nuss said the alliance was interested in restoring the balance of power among judicial, executive and legislative branches. The alliance is supported by Keep Our Republic, which works to preserve democracy.
The dangers range from threats of physical violence, like one left on a voice mail for Nuss while he served on the court, to public comments about how judges should rule, to efforts by other branches of government to exert their influence.
“There are pressures brought to bear on courts, judges,” Nuss said. “Somebody may be trying to poison things or to influence the judge before the decision is made by spouting off to the media or sometimes writing letters to the judge in chambers, or an example that is very terrible in my mind is the judge gets a pizza delivered to the judge’s home, and the message is, I know where you live.”
Nuss is a Salina native and Marine Corps veteran who earned his law degree from the University of Kansas. He practiced law in his hometown for 20 years before Republican Gov. Bill Graves appointed him to the Kansas Supreme Court in 2002. He became chief judge in 2010, during an era when Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and the Legislature repeatedly clashed with the judicial branch.
Nuss pointed to several examples where he believed Brownback and the Legislature presented a danger to the rule of law.
In one example, the Legislature passed a law to change the way chief justices were selected for district courts and threatened to defund the judicial branch if it was struck down. A chief justice filed a lawsuit, the Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional, and the Legislature had to hurriedly pass a funding bill.
In another example, the Legislature considered a proposal to expand the grounds for impeaching Supreme Court justices. The law would have allowed justices to be removed for trying to take power away from other branches, reckless conduct or poor performance reviews.
“As I read that in the media, I thought, ‘That’s a new one on me, and I’m not sure where this is going to end up,’ ” Nuss said.
The bill didn’t pass.
The Legislature’s threats became a topic of conversation at national conferences Nuss attended.
“I would have other chiefs come to me and say: ‘Lawton, you need to clarify this. I’m hearing from our colleagues here that this and this and this and this is going on in Kansas. Certainly that is just a rumor, and that’s too ridiculous to be true.’ And I would say, ‘No, that’s what’s going on.’ And then they’d want to talk about it, and they’d shake their heads and say, ‘I don’t get it,’ ” Nuss said.
Earlier this month, the Alliance of Former Chief Justices issued a founding statement that outlined the importance of preserving judicial independence and keeping judges separate from the politics of the other two branches of government.
The justices said people with strong policy views “chafe under this system.” But attacks on the system, their statement said, “undermine the integrity of the rule of law” and “upset the careful balance” the Founding Fathers envisioned when they wrote the U.S. Constitution.
“Elected members of the executive and legislative branches serve the public by seeking to enact or implement their campaign promises,” the statement said. “Judges, however, have only one constituent: the rule of law. By their oath, judges promise equal justice to all without regard to means, position, background or social standing — and certainly without regard to politics.”
