The Kansas Legislature is considering removing the state Supreme Court’s ability to review and approve the state’s school finance laws. And one professor with the University of Kansas School of Law isn’t happy. This week Mike Hoeflich wrote a strongly worded editorial in the Garden City Telegram, calling the Legislature’s proposal the first steps toward tyranny.
According to Professor Hoeflich, removing the Supreme Court’s oversight of education funding would “endanger the very central structure of Kansas government and law.” The editorial insisted that the proposal is irrational, rooted in lawmakers’ anger at recent court decisions. Hoeflich says lawmakers in Kansas simply don’t understand the role that judges must fulfill in the process of judicial review.
Judges, he says, don’t render opinions according to their whims or beliefs. It’s simply their job to make sure laws passed by the legislature are constitutional.