A state senator has a plan that would give the governor authority to appoint the majority of members on commissions that nominate Iowans to be district court judges.
Republican Senator Julian Garrett of Indianola would have the governor appoint six of the 11 members on each of the district court nominating panels. “The process is already politicized from my perspective,” Garrett told reporters. “We’re trying to improve it and fix it.”
A budget bill that’s cleared initial review in the Iowa Senate includes Garrett’s proposed change for district court judicial nominating commissions. Iowa governors appoint judges from lists of nominees submitted by these commissions and Peter Hird, secretary/treasurer of the Iowa AFL-CIO, told senators the change would give the governor more influence over the judicial branch.
“Giving the governor the power to appoint the majority of people who are going to nominate judges definitely to me and to our organization gives us a lot of concern,” Hird said during a subcommittee hearing Thursday.
Garrett’s proposal also removes the judges from each of the district court nominating commissions.
Doug Struyk, a lawyer who’s a lobbyist for the Iowa State Bar Association, said the perspective of a local district judge provides valuable insight about the lawyers who’re applying to become a judge.
“The judge would have interacted with these applicants, seen their temperament, seen their timeliness of filings,” Struyk said, “and I believe that, from someone who’s been in the shoes of a judge, would be particularly good information
for the other members of the commission to have when they were reviewing applicants.”
In 2019, Governor Reynolds signed a law that removed the longest serving Iowa Supreme Court justice from the commission that nominates people to serve on the Iowa Court of Appeals and the Iowa Supreme Court. For the past five years Reynolds has also had the authority to appoint a majority of the members of that state judicial nominating commission.