Every step the Kansas Supreme Court makes these days gets intense scrutiny by state legislators, and the timing chosen for the court’s newest member to take his seat is no exception.

It has been announced that Eric Rosen, currently a Shawnee County district judge, will join the high court on Nov. 18. Because a judge has to be in his or her position for at least a year before facing a retention vote, that means Rosen will not stand for retention in November 2004 but will be on the ballot in November 2006.

The timing probably was intentional, but it isn’t without some justification. Rosen has pending cases in Shawnee County that he needs to complete, and voters would have little basis on which to judge his performance after only 12 months on the job.

Nonetheless, some legislators are reading sinister motives into the move. The word that seemed to pop up several times in their comments was “political.” The date of Rosen taking his seat was another sign that the court is getting too “political.”

This seems ironic coming from legislators who have expressed an interesting in a requiring the Kansas Senate to confirm the governor’s court nominees. Do they think a confirmation process is going to make the court less “political.” They need look no further than the current situation at the national level to see that isn’t likely to be the case.

The timing of a retention vote probably was considered when choosing the date Rosen would take his seat, but it seems that legislators are only upping the political ante by using the situation to drive their own agenda. The system Kansas uses to appoint judges isn’t broken and shouldn’t be altered just because some state legislators are trying to gain political advantage over the judicial branch.