The governor’s lack of transparency in appointing people to fill public offices in the state once again is drawing fire.

Last week, the Associated Press, the Kansas Press Association and the Hutchinson News filed a lawsuit to contest Gov. Sam Brownback’s refusal to reveal information about the candidates he considered before appointing a magistrate judge in Reno County. The position was left vacant by the retirement in July of a judge whose term ran through 2016.

After the June 15 deadline for applications had passed, the governor’s office refused to release any information about the people seeking the job. An open records request filed by the Hutchinson News was refused on the basis that state employment records aren’t subject to the open records law.

That argument recently was rejected in a similar case filed by the AP and the Salina Journal. In Saline County, voters chose to expand their county commission from three members to five, which gave the governor the responsibility of appointing two new members to the commission. As he did in Reno County, he made those appointments but kept secret all information about other people who applied for the posts. A Shawnee County judge ruled in September that those applications were not exempt under the Open Records Act.

Like the Saline County commissioners, the Reno County magistrate is an elected position, not appointed as are district judges in about half of Kansas counties, including Douglas County. That may make the Hutchinson case even stronger, but the fact is that all application materials related to judicial appointments in the state should be a matter of public record.

That is standard procedure in counties where judges are appointed as well as for the Kansas Supreme Court. The nominating groups receive applications and announce the names of those who have applied as well as the names that are forwarded to the governor for his selection. By contrast, since the Supreme Court Nominating Commission has been eliminated from the process for selecting members of the Kansas Court of Appeals, applications for those positions go straight to the governor’s office, which has refused to release the names of or information about anyone except the person who is appointed to the court. That also has been the policy when the governor fills vacant district court positions in counties that elect their judges.

Critics of the Supreme Court Nominating Commission say the process isn’t open or democratic enough, but that process is far more transparent than the process currently being followed by the governor’s office.

Although the governor’s office has said it will appeal the ruling in the Salina case, the argument that applications to fill elected offices and judicial positions should be protected in the same way as a general state employment application just doesn’t hold water. These people are being appointed to serve the public in positions that are subject to public election or retention votes. Hiding information about the process by which these positions are filled is an affront to government transparency and the public trust.