Among the three branches of government receiving the least public approbation and acclaim lie our federal and state supreme courts, often receiving only condescending recognition from an unappreciative public. This lack of rightful and deserved recognition of the role played by our courts in seeking to uphold both the popular and unpopular wisdom of America's Founding Fathers is difficult to understand, particularly in an era that has seen how far afield the other two branches have managed to position themselves in recent years.

Some of the unfavorable populist irritation stems from the repeated insistence by higher courts in guaranteeing basic constitutional freedoms to every ethnic and religious segment of our population. It is still difficult for many to extend the privilege of free speech to revolutionary groups within our borders. It is harder still to grant constitutional rights to known criminals waging war against innocent citizens.

This, however has been the legacy of both federal and state courts, particularly those serving at the appellate levels. Charged with guaranteeing not only citizen rights and privileges, higher courts have also been charged with enforcing the guarantees granted by our Founding Fathers and deemed essential to our representative democracy for more than two centuries. Thus, when an appellate court rules that the state is expanding its unrecognized power in such areas as religion, free speech or right to assemble, it is further charged with pointing the way to the enforcement of its rulings, even if this remedy requires court orders of conformity to either or both of the other two branches of our state and national governments. This power of enforcement was not added capriciously by the author of the first ten amendments but in full recognition of the necessity to embolden the courts' powers of interpretation.

Courts have constantly been guided by the important provisions of the First Amendment that prohibit either of the other two branches, but particularly Congress, from enacting laws "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This farsighted view came as a result of the political, ecclesiastical and social dominance of the Church of England, which was the principal controlling factor of British society, save that of the monarchy. Our Framers were especially alert to this distraction from democracy and acted, most effectively it might be added, in protecting citizens from overreaching control and anarchy.

A more modern, and perhaps more relevant, view of the importance of our graduated court system in protecting citizens from a disturbing and threatening blight in their land was reinforced only the other day by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the right of citizens in our own state to protect their electoral process from pejorative, even threatening sources. In their Jan. 24 opinion, the justices, by a 6-3 vote, reinstated campaign-donation limits that were approved earlier by Missouri voters. These referendum-enacted restrictions against virtually unlimited campaign contributions to our statewide and legislative office candidates had earlier been ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court, which chose to ignore the overwhelming wishes of thousands of Missouri voters. Their will was, unfortunately, of little interest to the Missourian on the court, Clarence Thomas, whose slavish subservience to his court mentor, Antonin Scalia, is a repeated source of disappointment, even embarrassment, to sensibly moderate Missourians.

The earlier overturning of the majority's wishes by the appeals court seemed to focus on the right of the candidates rather than the right of the vast bulk of our state's citizens, establishing a kind of laissez-faire for anyone seeking public office without a glimmer of recognition that the public has a right to protect both the integrity and the continuance of popular elections.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, members of the Missouri Ethics Commission found themselves back in the business of maintaining the highest possible ethical standards within our state's referendum process. Their open-for-business sign is most welcome in the year 2000 which has already witnessed examples of buying candidates for U.S. senator, nine members of Congress, governor and other statewide offices. The millions of dollars that would have been spent for these contests will be reduced to realistic limits, thereby mitigating the vulnerability of successfully elected candidates to the often selfish, even illegal, wishes and whims of their buyers.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.