Judicial merit selection was first adopted right here, in this part of the country. Will its death begin here as well, in this year’s Kansas judicial retention elections?

Merit selection is just a shorthand. The plan Kansas and many other states use is officially called the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan. While the details vary from state to state, the essential characteristics are these: When a new judge must be appointed, a panel of attorneys chosen by peers will recommend a list of candidates, usually three, to the governor. For higher court appointments, these candidates usually have several years of experience serving in district or circuit courts. The governor then selects one of these candidates and that person begins serving. Periodically, voters decide whether to retain each judge in office, and these votes, called retention elections, are staggered so that not all judges are on the ballot in the same year. Judges are almost always retained. Kansans have never rejected a judge since the state began adopting merit selection in 1958.

The Missouri Plan’s name traces back to Kansas City’s “Boss Tom” Pendergast, whose Prohibition-defying, concrete-laying, Mafia-connected political machine once controlled Missouri politics and even reached into Kansas (particularly Wyandotte County). Finally fed up, in 1940 Missouri voters used the petition initiative, making the Show Me State the nation’s first to adopt merit selection. Many other states followed suit shortly afterward.

Here in Kansas, merit selection followed Gov. Fred Hall’s infamous “Triple Play.” After being defeated in the Republican primary for re-election in 1956, Hall resigned the governorship. Upon assuming the governorship, Hall’s lieutenant governor promptly appointed Hall as chief justice of the state supreme court. Kansas does not have a petition initiative, but the Legislature reacted promptly. While it could not recall Hall, it did institute merit selection starting in 1958. It later spread to the appellate courts and most district courts as well.

In 2013, the Legislature passed, and Brownback signed, legislation to remove the state appellate court from merit selection. Now, appellate judges are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, just like the federal system that so often freezes in gridlock — including right now, over President Obama’s unconfirmed Supreme Court designee Merrick Garland. Brownback then filled a new appellate court slot with his ally Caleb Stegall, who had no previous experience as a judge. Stegall served one year before securing a Supreme Court appointment, via merit selection, from Brownback.

This year, conservative activists are working hard to make judicial retention elections a major battleground. “Reject Activist Judges” and “Reject All But Stegall” signs and mailers are popping up around the state. While the ostensible reason for this involves the notorious Carr brothers murder case, the governor and legislators are also peeved at the court’s long string of rulings on school funding, and some also mention recent rulings finding an anti-abortion law to be overly broad.

The state supreme court simply ordered the Carr brothers to be re-sentenced. The Carrs will never see a day outside of jail and may yet face the death penalty. Instead, if nonretention passes, the real legacy of this vote will be to undermine judicial independence. Merit selection was created based upon the same principles once laid out by Alexander Hamilton: to hold the courts above politics and ensure that judges do not have to please voters or repay favors. Will judicial independence survive Kansas politics in 2016?

“This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humours which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the mean time, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community.” — Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 78.

— Michael A. Smith is a professor of political science at Emporia State University.