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?Open to the public the interviews of judicial candidates conducted by a nominating commission.

?Disclose publicly how many votes were cast by a commission for the three finalists it recommends.

?Allow the public to nominate judicial candidates.

In his speech to the Missouri Bar, Justice Price said the total money spent on judicial campaigns in states around the nation has doubled in the past decade, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. (That was a central finding of a recent report co-authored by Justice at Stake, “The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2000-2009: Decade of Change.”)

It could destroy judicial independence to shift from merit selection to a system where judges have to run in partisan elections and raise large campaign treasuries, he warned.

This year, critics of Missouri?s nationally recognized merit system tried, and failed, to get enough valid signatures to put the issue before voters this fall; the critics wanted to give voters a chance to support a system of competitive, partisan judicial elections (see Gavel Grab).