Missouri committee hears split testimony on bill to expand judges' financial disclosures and bar cases from donors

Representative Darren Chapel introduced House Bill 3,423 to require judges of courts of record to file annual financial statements and to bar a judge from presiding in any proceeding involving a party or attorney who has given the judge something of value.

The measure, Chapel said, is intended to bring transparency and an ethical standard for the judiciary comparable to those that already apply to other elected officials. “This bill applies to courts of record in the state of Missouri,” Chapel said in his presentation, adding that the bill would also subject members of the nominating commission under the Missouri Court Plan to the same disclosure rules.

Supporters at the committee hearing framed the bill as a common-sense transparency step. Jared Hankinson of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry said business owners need confidence in an impartial judiciary and that the bill’s intent is to prevent potential influence. “Modifying the laws to prevent that kind of influence and mandating any sort of transparency around things like that is essential protection,” Hankinson testified.

Opponents, including judges and organized bars, argued the proposal is unnecessary and too broad. Circuit Judge Brooke Jacobs, president of the Missouri Circuit Judges Association, told the committee that the judiciary is already governed by a code of conduct and criminal statutes. She said judges file annual disclosures and that the judicial code includes a de minimis carve-out for trivial items. “I don’t think there’s a problem,” Jacobs testified, urging members to consider unintended consequences.

Defense and trial-lawyer representatives echoed those concerns. David Clarich of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys and Randy Sher of the Missouri Organization of Defense Lawyers warned the bill’s reference to “anything of value” could sweep in routine campaign activity or social hospitality and could bar attorneys from supporting judicial candidates. Sher said the bill, as drafted, lacks clear temporal scope (for example, whether gifts from years earlier would disqualify a judge) and urged the committee to rely on existing Supreme Court rules and the code of judicial conduct instead.

Committee members pressed both sides on practical effects and public access to disclosures. Chapel said he supports transparency and is open to language changes that would preserve public inspection; Jacobs described current access as technically available but not posted online, and noted that holdings above a statutory threshold (discussed in testimony as $10,000) are disclosed on existing forms.

At least one registered lobbyist, Andy Briscoe of the Missouri Bar, warned the committee that the bill could create access-to-justice problems in rural areas if judges must be removed from cases and replacement judges are not readily available, delaying proceedings for litigants.

Eric Jennings, government-relations counsel for the Supreme Court on behalf of the Judicial Conference of Missouri, offered the committee additional material on the code of judicial conduct and the rules governing nominating commissions, saying those rules have ethical guidelines comparable to legislative standards.

The committee concluded the public hearing after testimony from supporters, opponents and informational witnesses. No vote or further committee action on HB 3,423 was recorded in the transcript.

The committee is expected to consider statutory drafting questions raised at the hearing—especially the bill’s temporal reach and the phrase “anything of value”—before any recommendation is made.