The Iowa Judicial Building.
A justice on the Iowa Supreme Court will retire soon and 22 Iowans have applied to fill the vacancy.
September 3, 2018, is Justice Bruce Zager’s retirement date. There are no women serving on the Iowa Supreme Court today and 15 of the 22 Iowans who applied to be his replacement are women.
The list includes five women who are district court judges and eight women who are attorneys, including a female lawyer who is a former judge.
Christopher McDonald, a judge on the Iowa Court of Appeals, is among those who applied, along with three assistant U.S. attorneys who work in Iowa — two of them are women — and one female lawyer from the Iowa Attorney General’s office.
The 17-member Iowa Judicial Nominating Commission will meet July 9th to interview the 22 applicants. The commission will then submit its top three candidates for the opening on the Iowa Supreme Court to the governor. Governor Reynolds will have 30 days to review the three nominees and appoint one to the court. The governor does have the authority to reject all three nominees, too. That action would prompt another round of commission interviews and decisions.