Giacomo Bologna

GBOLOGNA@NEWS-LEADER.COM

What do a generous aunt from outside St. Louis, a political megadonor from Joplin, and dozens of Springfield attorneys have in common? They all care about who's judge in Christian County.

Those people gave the bulk of the approximately $170,000 of donations raised among three candidates in the Republican primary for circuit court judge.

The total money donated to judicial candidates dwarfed the donations in other Christian County races, where most garnered only a few thousand dollars, records show.

Campaign records show more than 180 people, committees and businesses donated to the judicial race in Christian County, with close to 80 percent of those donations coming from outside the county.

Mike Lutke, a Christian County attorney, said it's bad to have those donations weighing on the minds of judges.

Traditionally, Lukte said, people who donate to a person's campaign are really "purchasing access" to that person.

"The question is: do we want our judges having a political constituency?" he said. "What are (donors) buying when they spend on judges?"

Lutke called Christian County's 2016 judicial race an "anomaly" from prior years when not nearly as much was raised.

He does not believe there is a quid pro quo system happening between judges and the people who donated to them.

Lutke said he sees a worst-case scenario, though, if donations continue to grow: "The people with the most money and the most power get to put their judges on the bench and your average voter is not going to be a member of that constituency."

"(Christian County) is not just a sleepy, rural backwater anymore," he said.

The general election takes place Tuesday, but the race was effectively decided in the Aug. 2 Republican primary which Jennifer Growcock handily won with about 59 percent of the vote, defeating opponents Kevin Elmer and Tony Brown.

And her campaign didn't raise the most in the primary. Elmer's campaign reported raising close to $100,000.

Growcock is a trial attorney at Polsinelli, P.C., Elmer is a lawyer and former state lawmaker, and Brown is an assistant prosecuting attorney for Taney County.

Growcock, who, barring some unforeseen event, will become judge in January, previously said she never met her biggest donor — Joplin businessman David Humphreys — who injected $25,000 into her campaign, making a donation through her website.

Campaign documents show at least 119 donors to Growcock's campaign. More than half of those donors were lawyers of law firms based somewhere else outside Christian County — mostly from Springfield.

Growcock pointed out that those lawyers and firms may be based in Springfield, but many practice law in Christian County.

Elmer said campaign spending in judicial races in Missouri now resembles races for the state legislature. Records show he received $38,850 from 15 different political committees, including $23,000 from the Friends of Eric Burlison committee.

Elmer's aunt, Deloris Petty, lives more than 200 miles away from Christian County and said she had every right to donate $50,000 to her nephew, calling Elmer a "good, godly Christian man."

Of the nearly $100,000 Elmer's campaign raised, less than $5,000 came from within Christian County, according to campaign records.

Brown raised the least amount of the three candidates. His campaign records show he raised about $11,000, and he loaned his campaign a couple of thousand dollars. A review of campaign documents showed at least 14 people donated to his campaign, 12 of whom live outside Christian County.

He spoke well of his competitors but called the total amount of donations "bordering on ridiculous."

"It doesn't look very good for justice," Brown said, adding that he fears the person with the most money can "potentially buy the office."

Christian County Presiding Commissioner Ray Weter said he hasn't given much thought to the amount of money raised in the Christian County judicial race or that most of the money came from outside the county.

"(The) candidates evidently had a lot of appeal to their donors," Weter said. "I don't think (donations) really affects the decision-making process of the judge."

If donations reached nearly $170,000 in a judicial race of the county that's considered a bedroom community to Springfield, how much money is being raised by judicial campaigns in Greene County?

None.

That's because the circuit court in Greene County uses the nonpartisan court plan — also called the "Missouri Plan," so named because the plan originated in the Show-Me State in 1940 before spreading to other states.

Under the Missouri Plan, judicial commissions nominate judges for an opening, then the governor selects one. That judge runs in a retention race at the end of a term to keep their seat on the bench.

According to the Missouri Bar, the Missouri Plan is aimed at reducing politics and money in the judicial selection process and "shielding candidates from undue pressure."

The other circuit courts using the Missouri Plan are located in Clay, Jackson and Platte counties in the Kansas City area and in the county and city of St. Louis.

The people interviewed for this article had varying opinions on whether the Missouri Plan would be good for Christian County.

Lutke, the attorney, said the Missouri Plan is no panacea for politicking, and it could allow bigger firms to muscle their lawyers onto the bench.

Weter, the presiding commissioner, said that when he looks at the Missouri Plan, he thinks it would put more politics into the process.

Growcock said she could see both the pros and cons of the Missouri Plan. As the incoming judge, she didn't feel it was appropriate for her to take a side and said it should be left to the people to decide.

Brown, the judicial candidate who spoke warily of increasing donations, didn't think the Missouri Plan would be right for Christian County, saying "people should have a say who's on the bench."

Conversely, Elmer, who raised the most of the three candidates, called the Missouri Plan "a good option," though it would be "pretty difficult" to pass in Christian County.

Crista Hogan, executive director of the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association, was part of the effort that led Greene County to adopt the Missouri plan in 2008.

"I'd be surprised if it came anytime soon (to Christian County)," she said. "In my personal experience, it took almost a decade from it being a concept to it being implemented (in Greene County)."

Residents of a circuit court have to vote in the switch, Hogan said, and to get it on a ballot requires a petition. The number of signatures needed for that petition is 10 percent of the total number of people who voted the last gubernatorial election, she said.

In the case of Greene County, Hogan said about 13,000 signatures were needed and about 18,000 were collected.

The ballot measure passed with 52 percent of the vote, she said, though it "seemed like a landslide."

The campaign to get the Missouri Plan passed in Greene County raised about $160,000, Hogan said, but the opposition campaign raised about twice that, "almost entirely from outside sources with no idea where it came from."

In 2008, the last year Greene County had partisan judicial races, the two leading candidates raised about $100,000 apiece — similar to what was raised in Christian County this year, Hogan said.

Hogan was hesitant to say whether the Missouri Plan was right for Christian County, but she said the plan has worked well for Greene County.

"It provides a stable judiciary and it lets the judges do what they're hired for and what they're best at — making fair, impartial decisions in the cases before them," Hogan said. "The larger a community becomes, the less likely the voters are going to know who they're voting for personally."