Litigation

IA Judicial Selection Lawsuit is Rejected

By Peter Hardin

A lawsuit challenging part of  Iowa’s merit-selection process for choosing state Supreme Court justices was thrown out by a federal judge, who called the challengers’ argument “fatally flawed.”

The lawsuit challenged the makeup of the commission that screens candidates for Iowa?s Supreme Court and sought to stop its seven lawyer members from helping to pick finalists to replace three justices whom voters ousted in November.

The four conservatives who brought the suit contended Iowa’s system gives too much influence to the lawyers who elect fellow attorneys to the Judicial Nominating Commission, according to an Associated Press article.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt ruled  that the activists who sued had not shown their constitutional rights were clearly violated, a Des Moines Register article reported.

“Undoubtedly, the right to vote for political representatives is the bedrock of American democracy,” Pratt wrote. “In this case, however, plaintiffs are asking the court to radically expand the scope of this fundamental right beyond all existing precedent and to recognize an entirely new 14th Amendment ‘right’ to greater influence in the selection of judges.”

The challenge  was filed by Indiana-based lawyer James Bopp on behalf of the four individual plaintiffs.

Lawyers for Iowa?s government had asked for dismissal of the lawsuit. They contended an adverse ruling would create numerous and severe problems (see Gavel Grab for background).

An adverse ruling could undermine the legitimacy of the four remaining justices; and it could lead to questions about the validity of past court rulings and whether a new system for selecting judges might be mandated by a federal judge, the state’s lawyers maintained.

The lawsuit was filed after voters dumped three state Supreme Court justices in response to a unanimous high court ruling that permitted same-sex marriages in the state.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 20, 2011 (boomark / email).