<P> Professor Stephen Ware of the University of Kansas wrote about the Missouri Plan, "As the bar is an elite segment of society, states that give lawyers more power than their fellow citizens are rightly described as elitist ." Ware continued: </P> <P>... even commission systems have democratic legitimacy insofar as members of the nominating commission are appointed by popularly elected officials . Democratic principles are violated, however, when members of the commission are selected by' a minority of the persons, i.e. lawyers in their area' . This, of course, is the core of the Missouri Plan--allowing the bar to select some of the commission and then declining to offset that bar power with confirmation by the senate or other popularly elected body . And it is this core that deprives the Missouri Plan of democratic legitimacy . </P> <P> Former Missouri State legislator and lawyer, Elbert Walton, has focused on the plan's effect on African Americans . "It is unfair that lawyers elect judges...It disenfranchises people and it especially disenfranchises black people ." At a press conference in February, 2008, Walton accused Missouri Bar President Charlie Harris, an African - American, of ignoring the Missouri Plan's effect on black people . Walton noted that no African American had ever been elected to one of the Missouri Bar's three slots on the Appellate Judicial Commission, though many have been appointed judges, and suggested that Mr. Harris "ought to be ashamed of himself" for supporting such a plan . </P> <P> Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee has criticized that state's version of the Missouri Plan for similar reasons . </P>

What is the missouri plan and how does it affect the governments power