TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas judge is suggesting that the independence of the state’s courts is at stake in a dispute over an administrative policy imposed on them by legislators.

An attorney for District Judge Larry Solomon of Kingman County on Friday asked District Judge Larry Hendricks of Shawnee County to strike down a 2014 law changing who selects chief judges in the state’s 31 judicial districts. Solomon is chief judge in the 30th District in south-central Kansas.

Hendricks had a hearing in a lawsuit by Solomon against the statute and said he will rule soon.

Judges in each district now pick their chief judges. The Kansas Supreme Court previously did.

The state contends there’s no attack on judicial independence.

But lawmakers tied the court system’s budget to preserving the policy change.

————————–

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas court is having a hearing in a judge’s lawsuit against an administrative policy imposed upon the state’s judiciary by legislators.

The hearing Friday afternoon in Shawnee County District Court concerns a 2014 law under which the district judges in each of the state’s 31 judicial districts pick their chief judges. Before the law, the Kansas Supreme Court chose them.

District Judge Larry Solomon of Kingman County contends the law violates a provision of the state constitution giving the Supreme Court general administrative authority over the judicial branch. Solomon is the chief judge in the 30th District of south-central Kansas.

The Republican-dominated Legislature passed another law earlier this year that attempts to make the court system’s entire budget for the next two years dependent upon the policy surviving.