Yesterday morning, Idaho Justice Linda Copple Trout announced that she is going to resign her position on the high court this summer so that her successor can be appointed rather than elected by the people of Idaho:

The Idaho Statesman reports that Trout “is more comfortable having a committee screen possible successors for Gov. Otter than have voters try to pick her replacement.”

Interesting.

We’ve complained before about justices on the Idaho Supreme Court circumventing the Idaho Constitution in order to help ensure that it remains an institution formed in their image. But those complaints were based on speculation and a pile of suspicious resignations. Now Justice Trout confirms that there is, in fact, a conspiracy within the state’s judiciary to effectively ignore the Constitution. These elites have decided to simply amend the Constitution without so much as a public court opinion or legislative act.

I guess you have to credit Trout for coming clean – but it is clearly reprehensible that a little legal cabal centered in Boise has simply decided that voters will no longer be given the privilege of selecting justices for the high court. Once again, Liberals find the written Constitution, with its recognition of rights inhering in the People, to be a great annoyance.

A related story in the Twin Falls paper quotes former Speaker of the House Bruce Newcomb as supportive of Trout’s open defiance of the Idaho Constitution: “These elections anymore are so ugly”. That is not a big surprise. He is a long-standing friend of the justice, and once introduced a constitutional amendment to limit judicial elections to a Soviet-style choice: Under the Newcomb plan, we poor folk would be given the simple-minded choice of affirming candidates selected for us by our superiors. In the strange circumstance where a majority of Idahoans voted against a judicial candidate, the cabal would simply gather to select for us another of their liking.

Thankfully, Mr. Newcomb no longer runs the show in the Idaho House. It is time for the Legislature to begin a serious consideration of this whole matter. We are not simply talking about judicial selection or personalities. In this case, we are talking about the checks and balances of constitutional government, whereby the state’s Founding Fathers wisely sought to protect the public from an unaccountable judiciary.

Furthermore, the Legislature has a duty to protect the Constitution’s integrity, especially when it is being rewritten by a small group of self-interested lawyers. That process (or lack of process) cannot be allowed to stand.