Troubling trend for impartial courts

Iowa has weathered two politicized attacks on its courts in recent years. The first, in 2010, saw Iowa voters toss three experienced, accomplished Supreme Court justices from the bench in the wake of a unanimous ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.

In 2012, a similar effort to remove Justice David Wiggins failed. Iowans concerned about turning retention votes into pricey political referendums on controversial rulings breathed a sigh of relief. The storm had passed.

But troubling national trends suggest it hasn't.

According to analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's College of Law, and Justice at Stake, more than $13.8 million was spent on TV ads in state supreme court elections across the country this year. That's up from the $12.2 million spent in 2010.

A large chunk of these ads, $4.9 million, was funded by outside special-interest groups injecting partisan politics into judicial votes. The spending and the political pressure it purchased, in turn, forced judges to raise their own war chests and campaign to save their jobs.

The biggest spender was the Republican State Leadership Committee, which spent more than $2 million on ads in Montana, Illinois, Tennessee and North Carolina races. A group funded by plaintiffs' lawyers in Illinois, Campaign for 2016, spent $1.1 million targeting an Illinois justice. Illinois set a record for judicial spending.

In Tennessee, conservative groups sought to somehow tie state Supreme Court justices to Obamacare, even though they had not handled a case involving the law. In Michigan and North Carolina, judicial challenges and incumbents raised more than $1.9 million.

The good news is that the special-interest spending offensive largely failed. Targeted justices kept their seats. But we don't expect those failures to end efforts to assert political pressure.

'As more national players seek to bully and buy the courts, our constitutional right to a fair day in court is in jeopardy,” said Justice at Stake Executive Director Bert Brandenburg.

It's a trend that demands our attention as Iowa prepares for retention votes on three Supreme Court justices in 2016. It's not hard to imagine outside groups hijacking our judicial votes after witnessing the special-interest battle for our open Senate seat.

We should be prepared to stand up and defend Iowa's judicial system against further political damage.

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