Three lawyers are running to chair the panel that will screen candidates for the next justice of the Kansas Supreme Court.
One previously served on the panel. Another wants to abolish the commission. And a third made news because he backed a bill in the Legislature overhauling faculty tenure.
Terry Campbell of Lawrence, Josh Ney of Jefferson County and Steven L. Lovett of Emporia are running to chair the nine-member Supreme Court Nominating Commission.
The winner will replace Gloria Farha Flentje who is not running again to chair the panel, which is made up of five lawyers and four nonlawyers.
The five lawyers are elected by their peers, and the four nonlawyers are appointed by the governor. Four of the lawyers represent each congressional district. The chair is statewide.
Flentje, a longtime Kansas lawyer who has represented Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, defeated Wichita lawyer Gary Ayers in 2001 to chair the nominating commission.
Also, there will be an election for the lawyer representing the 4th Congressional District.
Wichita lawyer Thomas J. Lasater is running for reelection against Rachael Pirner of Wichita for that seat.
The elections could have an influence on who replaces Justice Evelyn Wilson, who is leaving the court later this year after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
However, the Legislature just passed a constitutional amendment that would abolish the nominating commission in favor of electing Supreme Court justices.
The measure will go on the ballot in August 2026, a primary election when turnout tends to be lower and dominated by Republicans.
If the amendment is approved by the voters, candidates could be running for the Supreme Court as early as 2028.
Campbell had served as a lawyer member of the nominating commission representing the 2nd Congressional District from 2019 to 2022.
But he resigned in 2022 when he was moved out of the 2nd Congressional District because of new election districts drawn by the Legislature.
“I care about selecting justices for the Supreme Court who are diligent, brilliant, fair and impartial,” Campbell said in an interview.
“I think the selection of justices should be based on merit, not politics,” he said.
“I care about making sure our Supreme Court remains free from influence that often is sought by individuals and groups who fund expensive elections,” he said.
He intends to oppose the constitutional amendment that calls for electing justices to the Kansas Supreme Court.
“I don’t think that’s the way Kansas ought to go,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the right thing for Kansas.”
He works at the Lawrence law firm Barber Emerson, where he specializes in criminal defense law and general litigation.
He graduated in 1997 with a law degree from the University of Kansas. He clerked two years for U.S. District Judge John W. Lungstrum.
He also worked part-time as a traffic judge for the Douglas County District Court. In 2001, he worked as an adjunct professor at the KU law school.
He graduated with a bachelor’s from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.
He was nominated to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama, although he later withdrew his name for consideration when confirmation appeared doubtful.
Lovett is the general counsel and vice president of risk management for Emporia State University. He’s also a novelist, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Lovett was in the news recently because he was behind a bill during the legislative session that critics said weakened protections for tenured faculty and limited academic freedom.
The bill would have eliminated the property right of tenure for faculty members employed by public universities in Kansas.
Lovett confirmed during a hearing that he wrote the bill in his personal capacity.
He said the First Amendment protected classroom instruction, scholarship, research and the professional competence of faculty members, not tenure or due process.
He also is a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed against Emporia State by a group of tenured faculty who were fired in 2022.
He earned a bachelor’s from Texas A&M University and his law degree from St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas.
Lovett could not be reached for comment for this story.
Ney is the third candidate running for chair. He joined the race because the Kansas Supreme Court wouldn’t make public the names of candidates until after the filing deadline.
“This is a major transparency issue with no public policy rationale,” he said.
Elected as the Jefferson County attorney, Ney has been defending clients before the state ethics commission and has played a key role in helping the Legislature rewrite campaign finance and state ethics laws during the last couple of legislative sessions.
A former Kansas securities commissioner, Ney is now a partner with Olathe attorney Ryan Kriegshauser.
His work included fighting the governor’s executive order limiting the size of religious gatherings at churches during the pandemic and challenging a school district’s policy requiring teachers to use the preferred names and pronouns of transgender students.
Ney testified for the constitutional amendment that would abolish the nominating commission and move to a system of electing Supreme Court justices. Nevertheless, Ney said he still wants to improve the existing system.
“I want judges with merit who can apply the law as written and whatever system we have, that’s the goal,” he said. “We need an independent judiciary, we need a competent judiciary and we need a system that Kansans can trust.”
Ney said he worked on the 2016 law that required the Supreme Court nominating commission to open up its deliberations and vote publicly on the three candidates it recommends to the governor to choose from to appoint to the state Supreme Court.
“I’m not going to wait to improve a system that’s already been selecting judges for almost 70 years,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of good that can be done.”
Over in the 4th Congressional District, Lasater is seeking reelection to the panel after defeating Jennifer Marie Hill on the nominating commission in 2021.
Lasater practices at the Wichita firm of Fleeson Gooing and handles civil litigation, commercial transactions, bankruptcy, real estate and business law.
He is a member of the firm’s executive committee.
He received a bachelor’s in economics from West Texas State University and a law degree from George Washington University in 1982.
Pirner, who practices at Triplett Woolf Garretson, represents clients in trust and probate-related litigation.
Pirner has practiced law for 25 years and has handled many cases in several areas of civil, trust and probate litigation involving adoption and probate matters.
She has also practiced in the area of assisted reproductive technology for the past nine years, representing clients in contract matters and establishing parental rights.
She has represented clients in probate as well as civil courts in matters involving trust accountings and malfeasance issues, will contests, contested guardianship and conservatorship matters, and contested adoptions.
She graduated from the University of Nebraska Law School in 1989.
