A Push To Make Secret Selection Less Secret
June 11, 2008
A Des Moines Register editorial tries to make the case for preserving “merit selection” in Iowa, but actually winds up highlighting many of the system’s shortcomings.
The Register objects to judicial elections because “candidates must raise big money from potential litigants and law firms,” presumably enhancing the influence these special interests have with judges. But in virtuous Iowa, as the Register notes, “seven members” of the state’s 14-member judicial nominating commission are “elected by Iowa lawyers.” In other words, the Register can’t abide the possibility that democratic elections might give lawyers undue influence in determining who sits on the bench, but they have no problem with a system that assures that lawyers will control judicial appointments. Huh?
The Register rightly argues that Iowa’s judicial nominating commission needs to be more “transparent” and recommends that at least one meeting with a potential judge be conducted in public. The notion that powerful judges should be chosen in secret, behind closed doors, by an unelected commission with no public accountability should be deeply troubling to anyone who believes government decisions should not be hidden from the people – and we’re happy Iowa’s most influential newspaper shares this concern.
Finally, the Register helpfully publishes the bios of the three finalists for a seat on the Iowa Court of Appeals “in the spirit of greater transparency” and to help “increase the likelihood … for Iowans to understand how it [the secret commission] works.” But isn’t it a little odd (or maybe even un-democratic) that after 50 years of supposedly selecting judges by “merit,” the process of choosing who controls one-third of the state government is still a mystery to Iowa citizens?