What's The Deal With The Judiciary? [PART II]
Why we're calling for judicial reform.
When a spot opens up on the United States Supreme Court, the American people know it.
The press spends weeks discussing (and dissecting the lives of) possible appointees, and once one is picked, the justice-to-be faces public confirmation hearings and a vote of the U.S. Senate. This system has served our nation well for over 200 years.
The process isn’t so transparent at the state level. WYFC member Representative Joe Webb (HD 19, Uinta) broke it all down in a recent column:
What’s worse is that secretive Judicial Nominating Commission has, in recent years, become increasingly politicized— and so has the Wyoming Bar Association. Like many of our trusted institutions, the legal community has seemingly become a victim of left-wing institutional capture— so much so that the judicial nomination process in Wyoming has routinely elevated liberal activists to the final stages of the selection process, all without the public knowing it.
In 2023, we raised alarm over the Judicial Nominating Commission’s elevation of a highly partisan political activist to the “final three” stage for the Wyoming Supreme Court.
The Lawyers Active in WY PAC (“LAWPAC”), funded by many of these same legal insiders, has given tens of thousands of dollars to liberal Republicans and Democrats in every election cycle for over a decade. Here’s who they supported in 2024:
The result of liberals on the bench.
As more ideologues serve as judges, the more Wyomingites lose trust in the judicial branch— and that is not a good thing. As conservative attorney Cassie Craven put it, belief in the judiciary is what makes it effective.
When judges declare from the bench the existence of a constitutional right to abortion, people stop taking the court seriously.
When a judge dictates that in order for Wyoming schools to be properly funded, each student must have their own laptop computer, people start asking, “how did we get here?”
Can’t a conservative governor fix this?
While a true conservative governor could fix a lot, he or she would be hamstrung by the current judicial selection process in Wyoming.
The Judicial Nominating Commission narrows down the possible pool of judicial appointments to three names. So long as the Commission remains secretive and influenced by legal insiders, apolitical or conservative attorneys (who do exist in Wyoming) will continue to be left out of the process— even if a conservative governor wants to choose one of them.
It’s time.
The people of Wyoming deserve a judicial branch they understand and believe in— and this doesn’t mean they are entitled to one they agree with 100% of the time.
Wyoming deserves a transparent judicial selection process, public buy-in, and real checks and balances.
WY wants transparency!
Remember too, that nearly 100 'WY' Lawyers-judges (some retired) just sent an 'open letter' to our US Rep Hageman and Senators Barrasso & Lummis pushing that they denounce DOGE.