A situation unfolding in Wichita again points out how the judicial branch of government functions best when it is removed as far as possible from the vagaries of partisan politics.

Last week, Kansas abortion opponents filed an ethics complaint against Sedgwick County District Judge Paul W. Clark, who dismissed 30 misdemeanor criminal charges against a Wichita doctor who performs late-term abortions. The complaint alleges that Clark violated rules of judicial conduct by not disclosing the fact that he had accepted campaign contributions in 2004 from a law firm that represents the doctor as well as from Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston.

Unlike Douglas County, Sedgwick County elects its district judges in partisan elections. State law allows individual judicial districts to determine whether their judges are elected or appointed. Appointed judges, like those in Douglas County, face a retention vote every four years, but they don’t run political election campaigns.

The people who filed the complaint against Judge Clark likely are being motivated more by their anti-abortion agenda than by a concern about judicial ethics, but the fact that Clark was elected after accepting campaign contributions from local attorneys and others, leaves him vulnerable to the criticism his opponents are leveling.

Accepting campaign contributions from attorneys is, no doubt, a common practice for judges seeking election or re-election. In most cases, it can be successfully argued that such contributions do nothing to buy favor with a judge or influence his or her legal rulings. But with every contribution to a judge’s campaign comes an implied potential for favoritism that can easily translate into an appearance of misconduct on the bench. The only way to remove that appearance of impropriety is to remove the selection of judges from the political arena.

Several times in recent years, legislators have proposed the idea of standardizing selection of judges across the state by having all judicial districts use “merit” selection, as Douglas County does, but the proposal has never advanced. Currently, 17 districts use the merit system of appointment and 14 districts elect judges on a politically partisan ballot.

It remains to be seen whether the state’s Commission on Judicial Qualifications will find that any misconduct on Judge Clark’s part, but it would seem a hard case to make. He has served more than 25 years as a district judge in Sedgwick County and probably has accepted no more campaign contributions from local attorneys than any other judge in that district.

Under the partisan election process Sedgwick County follows, it seems impractical to think that an elected judge should recuse himself from any case involving an attorney whose firm has contributed to his campaign. The problem is not Judge Clark; it is a system that improperly mixes justice with politics.