Kansas Governor OK's Remarkable Invasion Of Judicial Branch

In an apparent act of retaliation against the Kansas Supreme Court for striking down an earlier law dealing with education, the Kansas legislature and Governor Sam Brownback have passed and signed a law funding the judicial branch but simultaneously threatening to defund the branch if it strikes down the funding law. And there is reason to think the courts might: The law purports to vest the authority to select chief district judges in the State's district judges themselves, not in the Kansas Supreme Court. The State constitution gives the supreme court "general administrative authority over all courts in this state."

According to NYT, critics of the law accuse the governor of attempting "to stack the district courts with judges who may be more favorable to his policies."

A threat to defund the entire judicial branch sounds like an unrealistic threat to me, but it's there nonetheless.