Litigation

IA Chief Justice Defends Merit Selection

By Peter Hardin

The chief justice of Iowa’s state Supreme Court, Marsha Ternus, has issued a dual warning: about the threat to fair and impartial courts if Iowa’s merit selection system were replaced with judicial elections, and about the danger of transforming retention votes for judges into popular referenda on specific rulings.

In an article in the Waterloo Courier, Justice Ternus was quoted as saying on a public affairs radio program, “It would be a terrible step backwards” to replace Iowa’s merit-based nominating process, and the insulation from politics that it affords judges, with judicial elections.  “It would change the entire nature of the judiciary,” she said. Some proposals in the legislature would revise the current process.

Three Iowa justices will be up for retention elections this year, and some conservatives are pressing for votes against them. A 2009 state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage has come under harsh criticism by some elected officials. Justice Ternus, according to Radio Iowa, offered a warning:

?I am confident that the people of Iowa want to retain the system that we have and make it work the way it was intended to work, and that is on a merit-based system, not as a referendum on any particular decision that a judge might make.?

In neighboring Wisconsin, the Wisconsin State Journal published an editorial headlined, “Wake up Tuesday’s sleepy primary.” It renewed an editorial call for merit selection of state Supreme Court justices, saying, “Merit selection is the best way to keep our top state court impartial and independent.”

To learn more about how appointment and retention systems work, check out Justice at Stake’s issues page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 16, 2010 (boomark / email).