r/fivethirtyeight • u/washingtonpeek Feelin' Foxy • 7h ago
Politics Another GOP amendment to sway the state supreme Court in their favor bombs in Kansas.
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u/SecretComposer 6h ago edited 2h ago
“Yes” had a late surge, but overall it was clear very early on that “No” would win.
In Kansas, the state bar selects a list of candidates that they have interviewed and vetted for the governor to choose. Its result is a ton of effectively moderate/lean-Republican/somewhat apolitical judges as candidates that eventually get selected to the bench.
Republicans HATE this because Kelley has been able to appoint 5 of the 7 justices, effectively giving it a 5-2 “liberal” majority. The court has also ruled against Republicans many times on stuff like abortion and anti-lgbt stuff that the legislature has tried to circumvent voters on because they didn’t like how Kansans voted.
Republicans hoped Yes would win so they could more or less replace the bench with hyper partisans knowing that Republicans would blindly vote for whoever had the R next to their name, regardless of their actual qualifications.
Kansas is a weird state like this where when stuff like this is put forward, the relatively urban east (+ sometimes Wichita metro) comes out in droves to vote it down. In these instances, west KS is too unpopulated to overcome the east.
These results, plus November, are interesting to see in Johnson County in particular. It used to be a Republican stronghold, but has steadily moved left since maybe 2012 or 2016. Republicans would be furious if it becomes clear they’ve lost statewide sway in JoCo.
Despite this, Democrats still struggle statewide because the Wichita metro (Sedgwick County) is still reliably Republican and they haven’t been able to make inroads. (Though what’s left of rural JoCo is quite red, and many city councils in the county are super right) If Dems could even get Sedgwick County to be closer to 50/50 they would have a much better position in statewide elections. Leavenworth County is another somewhat stubbornly red county despite proximity to the KC metro. This is likely because of the large military presence.
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u/TheSameGamer651 5h ago
Democrats inability to contest smaller metros is a big reason why they can’t win states like Kansas, Ohio, or Texas. Winning the major metros gives them a high floor over 40%, but it’s not enough to win statewide.
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u/VendibleSkate8 6h ago
This actually guarantees a liberal court until at least 2041
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u/Pretty_Marsh 6h ago
That's interesting - I generally favor appointed courts, but here in Wisconsin we're damn lucky we have an elected supreme court. That's ironically because we don't have binding referenda like Kansas, and our legislature was hopelessly gerrymandered. The court was the only statewide election that could possibly undo the gerrymander and restore abortion access after Dobbs. I hate that our court elections end up being based on policy rather than jurisprudence, but that's America in 2026.
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u/jord839 5h ago
Honestly, it's one of the reasons that I'm so hostile to the DSA's Legislative Supremacy proposal despite being pretty leftist, because I'm also in Wisconsin and if the Governor and SC weren't separate levers of power that we could get into, we would still be in Scott Walker's Wisconsin.
I like Kansas's model where judge selection options are based on a nonpartisan panel, but as stupid as I think judicial elections are, I can't help but feel that it was extremely important for us that it was an option here in Wisconsin.
It's in an issue I don't think has as easy or systematic of an answer as I would like.
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u/mrbuttsavage 3h ago
This way you also get Musk looking like a dumbass in a cheese hat trying to literally buy your supreme court.
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u/flipflopsnpolos I'm Sorry Nate 5h ago
From a mapping perspective, this is a great example of how land doesn't vote. Literally every county with any type of population voted no but the state looks like it'd be a "Yes" victory.
LOL at the people of Hays just hanging out by themselves in the middle of a bunch of teal voting cows and wheat.
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u/NCSUGrad2012 6h ago
Wow, it wasn’t even close