No partisan politics in our courtrooms

By The Gazette Editorial Board

With the fall campaign season approaching, Iowa's court system has, unfortunately, become a political football.

Bob Vander Plaats, who failed in his bid to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination in June, is now spearheading an effort to remove three justices of the Iowa Supreme Court who face retention votes in November.

Terry Branstad, a former Republican governor who won the nomination, thinks Iowa should scrap its merit-based system for picking Supreme Court justices and allow the governor to make his pick like a U.S. president. Under the current, 46-year-old system, a special commission selects three nominees based on experience and performance. The governor makes the final pick from those nominees, subject to Senate confirmation.

Both men are targeting the courts because they object to the Supreme Court's unanimous 2009 ruling allowing same-sex marriages in Iowa.

Certainly, the ruling has stoked intense debate. But Vander Plaats' push and Branstad's proposal set out to punish, weaken and politicize Iowa's strong and independent judiciary. We oppose both efforts.

Clearly, Iowans can vote as they wish on the judges and justices who will appear on the ballot. But we believe a mechanism intended to remove judges in rare circumstances of misconduct or professional incompetence should not be used, instead, as tool for retribution to avenge any one ruling that inflames political passions.

Unlike lawmakers who can delay actions, judges must make decisions. They shouldn't be punished for doing that often difficult job, or for rendering rulings that are based on law, precedent and evidence. Clearly, the marriage ruling falls into that category. And Iowa is better served by judges who concentrate on delivering decisions that are solid legally, not popular politically.

Judges should be held accountable, but not intimidated.

They should also continue to be chosen through the system that Iowans smartly approved in the early 1960s. Before 1964, Iowa's judges were selected through partisan elections. Reformers pushed for a new system with hopes of removing partisan political pressures from the state's courtrooms.

It's worked well in the subsequent decades, providing Iowa with a court system that's the nation's fifth best according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The chamber ranks Iowa fourth for the impartiality of its judges.

It makes little sense to replace that with a Supreme Court selection process that would look very much like the political circus that swirls around nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. Perhaps Branstad is trying to win favor with opponents of the marriage decision, but we'd urge him to reconsider altering a system that worked well during his 16 years as governor.