House vote to kill Judicial Reform

A bill that would have slightly reformed the process to nominate and elect judges was sent back to committee (or recommitted) because amendments that would have truly reformed the process were about to be discussed. House members did not want to be on the record as voting against these amendments so instead the bill was recommitted, effectively killing it for the year.

It is unfortunate that Representative’s were so adverse to making the judicial branch independent of the legislature that they voted to kill a bill that contained minor reforms, fearing that substantive reforms would be discussed.

Legislators were so opposed to voting on the record on this bill that the vote to recommit it to committee is not even recorded in the journal. The only record of this vote is the picture below.

Names and contact information of the House members that voted to avoid a debate on real judicial reform and killed the bill can be found below the picture.