Anti-Choice Groups Seek to Stack State Courts

Anti-Choice Groups Seek to Stack State Courts
by Zoe Greenberg, Investigative Fellow, RH Reality Check
July 24, 2014

Over the past two years ultra-conservatives have seen a slate of victories in Kansas, long a bastion of political conservatism. Republican Gov. Sam Brownback instituted the most aggressive income tax cuts in state history, leading to extreme budget shortfalls; he cut public education funding so severely that the Kansas Supreme Court had to interfere; and he removed nearly 45 percent of poor families from state welfare.

Less noticed was Brownback’s move to change the way judges are selected for the state court of appeals—an action that had the full backing of the leading anti-choice group in the state.

“We have a pro-life house and a pro-life senate and a pro-life governor,” Mary Kay Culp, the executive director of Kansans for Life, told RH Reality Check. But, she said, there’s a problem. “We pass pro-life legislation—and we get sued. The next frontier is the courts.”

Stung by the wave of state court cases consolidating marriage equality across the country, conservative groups in many states are now focusing on judicial elections to ensure the array of laws they’ve passed are upheld when challenged in state courts....

MORE at http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/07/24/anti-choice-groups-seek-stack-state-courts/