Litigation

Scholars Score IA Impeachment Bid

By Peter Hardin

“We fought a Revolution, in part, to ensure that our judges would not be made dependent on the whim of politicians,” a legal scholar writes in denouncing a proposal to impeach four Iowa Supreme Court justices.

Miguel Schor, who teaches at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, takes issue in a Des Moines Register column with impeachment talk. He is a visiting professor at Drake University in Iowa.  Schor maintains that judicial independence — and the view that judges may not be impeached for unpopular decisions — form a bedrock of our constitutional culture.

“When politicians can change the rules of the democratic game by simply changing the judges, everyone’s rights and liberties are at risk,” Schor explains. Although the impeachment process has not begun in the legislature (photo of Capitol at left), there is debate about whether impeachment is an appropriate response to a controversial state high court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.

In a separate Des Moines Register column, N. William Hines, professor and dean emeritus of the University of Iowa College of Law, explores the view that an impeachment vote in the state House alone could cause severe disruption for the courts.

Hines questions how a temporary justice would be appointed, to replace one who was impeached. Under state law, Hines says:

“[A] vote by the House to impeach requires immediate suspension of the impeached justice from further judicial duties. Secondly, when a justice is impeached, the governor is required ‘forthwith to appoint some suitable person to temporarily fill the office.’ Because this process has never been used to impeach a Supreme Court justice in its 160 years on the books, it is unclear whether the later constitutional amendment setting up the current judicial nominating system would apply to a temporary judicial appointment.”

In addition, Hines writes, a state Senate trial of impeached judges can not take place until after the legislature adjourns, later in the spring. How would the state Supreme Court operate, he asks, in the interim period of such an impeachment scenario?  “So it is hard to imagine a scenario more disruptive to the smooth functioning of the Iowa judicial system,” Hines concludes.

On Election Day, Iowans voted to remove three state Supreme Court justices who appeared on the retention ballot. A screening commission will start interviewing candidates for those vacant seats next week.

According to a poll released this week by Justice at Stake and an Iowa-based group, Iowa voters are solidly against the proposal to impeach the remaining four state Supreme Court justices (learn more from earlier Gavel Grab post.)

Leaders of the Iowa judiciary have promised greater transparency in the future, including public interviews of candidates for the Supreme Court. But Nathan W. Tucker writes in the “Iowa Republican” blog of accounts that some candidates still are having private meetings with members of the screening commission, and he calls for greater transparency by the panel.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 21, 2011 (boomark / email).