Litigation

IA Bar Leader Strongly Defends Merit System

By Peter Hardin

In the midst of a pitched election cycle, the president of the Iowa State Bar Association is making a strong appeal to keep politics out of picking judges.

Jane V. Lorentzen defends Iowa’s merit selection method for choosing judges in a Des Moines Register column.

In this election season, some critics have urged votes to throw three Iowa justices off the state Supreme Court (photo at right) following that court’s legalizing same-sex marriage last year (see Gavel Grab). Two unsuccessful candidates for the Republican nomination for governor vowed to appoint only state Supreme Court justices who oppose gay marriage.

Lorentzen describes litmus tests for judges warily, saying they create a “slippery slope that would threaten to inject politics into the process, diminishing the fair and impartial role that judges need to play.”

She goes on to portray the risks for  fair and impartial courts from big-money judicial election spending:

“The beauty of Iowa’s merit selection of judges is that it keeps politics and big money out of the process of selecting judges. This prevents the real or perceived influence that campaign donations or political support may have on our judges.

“Imagine that you own a small business that cannot afford to contribute to the judicial campaigns and you are in a dispute with a large corporation that has contributed large amounts to the judge’s re-election effort. What if you’re the parent in a child custody dispute and you discover your former spouse’s attorney contributed to the judge’s campaign and your attorney did not? Are you going to feel good about your chances for a fair and impartial hearing?”

Lorentzen details how judicial nominating commissions work in Iowa. They are made up of members of the public and an equal number of lawyers, and they recommend nominees to the governor. She also tells how the State Bar Association polls its members on their views of sitting judges before a retention (up-or-down) election and makes the results public. She concludes:

“To protect access to justice for all and our rights under the Constitution, we have a responsibility to defend fair and impartial courts, which the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist called the ‘crown jewel’ of our democracy.”

To learn more about appointment and retention systems, check out Gavel Grab’s issues page on the topic.

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 14, 2010 (boomark / email).