The Blunt Administration announced Wednesday the appointment of Alok Ahuja of Lee’s Summit to replace former appeals Judge Patricia Breckenridge. As our informed readers already know, Breckenridge was recently appointed to the Missouri Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Ronnie White. Ordinarily, this routine appointment is something we probably would have overlooked until now.

The Missouri Political News Service obtained this exclusive email written by Judge Patricia Cohen suggesting to her fellow commissioners that they delay the announcement of Judge Barbara Crancer’s April 1st retirement from the public and the Governor until a current vacancy is filled:

“The rules permit the commission to submit its nominations to the governor within 60 days of April 1. Before we start the process to fill Judge Crancer’s position, I would prefer to wait until the governor selects for the current opening.”

We asked Monday if Judge Cohen is seeking some political leverage by preventing the public and Governor Blunt from knowing about a judicial vacancy? Fellow commissioner Pat Dudley had some issues with Judge Cohen’s suggestion:

“Perhaps being new to the process has me a bit behind the learning curve, but in the aggregate it seems wholly improper that this commission be asked to keep this information from the public of the Governor: and, with the written expression that the Governor would only be informed after he makes a selection from the existing panel.

We serve on a public commission and our duties, as I see it as public servants, are to serve the public with as much transparency as possible. The formal announcement of a judicial vacancy is of public interest.. Keeping it a secret until such time as the Governor fills the existing vacancy is not, in my opinion and belief, part of this commission’s public charge and something with which I strongly disagree.”

We don’t know what is more unfortunate in this situation. The fact that after inundating us daily for weeks with the whole Scott Eckersley deleted emails affair, the mainstream press’ obsession with emails and the Sunshine law is now non existent. Or the fact that Mannies, Messenger, Kraske and the rest of the crew are sitting on this explosive story because they don’t want to give an upstart blog recognition. You are not hurting us fellas, our readership continues to grow weekly. You are though doing a disservice to your readers and the citizens of Missouri. Long live the new media!

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