The wife of Republican State Auditor Dave Vaudt is one of three nominees for a vacancy on the Iowa Court of Appeals. 

The state Judicial Nominating Commission interviewed 18 applicants for the job and chose three names to submit to the governor, who will make the final decision. Fifty-seven-year-old Jeanie Kunkle Vaudt of West Des Moines has been an assistant attorney general since 1998, working for the state’s Democratic attorney general.

The two other nominees for the opening on the appeals court are both judges. Fifty-year-old Thomas Nelson Bower of Cedar Falls is the chief judge in Iowa’s first judicial district; 49-year-old Susan Kay Christensen of Harlan is a district associate judge.