Communication, education key to defending Iowa’s courts

Communication and education will likely be key to defending Iowa’s merit selection judicial nominating process and avoiding judges being voted out of office for political reasons in the future, several people familiar with the issue say.

Social conservative groups including Iowa Family Policy Center (now known as The Family Leader), the National Organization for Marriage, Iowa for Freedom and the American Family Association launched a major campaign in Iowa last year to remove through a retention vote three Iowa Supreme Court justices that took part in a unanimous ruling that found a legislative ban on same-sex marriage to be a violation of the Iowa Constitution’s equal protection clause.

They groups were successful in ousting the justices, and expectations are the remaining four justices that supported the unanimous decision in Varnum v. Brien will also face difficult retention votes in 2012 and 2016.

Rox Laird, editorial writer for The Des Moines Register, said it will be up to the courts more and more to tell their story, especially with the contraction of the news industry. He suggested allowing more cameras into courtrooms be a part of that effort, and working to make the court system more accessible and understandable for the public.

“One thing I would say is I would challenge anybody in this room to boil down a 30-page opinion to five words that is meaningful,” Laird said. “We are in the business of getting people to actually buy a product, and if you have headlines to say in 42 words that the court dealt with the issue of equal protection, it’s just not going to happen.”

Laird said the outcome of the retention vote may have been different if the news business had done a better job “of explaining to people what the courts are really about.”

“We were criticized for publishing anything by [Bob] Vander Plaats at all and I have to confess I winced at some of the things we did publish, but we do have an obligation to tell both sides of the story,” Laird said.

Vander Plaats is now the head of The Family Leader, and spear-headed a statewide campaign to oust the justices.

Iowa is often praised for its merit selection process in appointing judges, a system put in place in the 1960′s. Under that system, a 15-member judicial nominating commission composed of lawyers and non-lawyers recommend appointees to the governor based on quality, integrity and professional ability – rather than on political ability or connections.

Matt McCoy

State Sen. Matt McCoy (D-Des Moines) said the public should have some background on judges available on retention election ballots. The Iowa Bar Association does every year release a plebiscite, or rating of all the state’s judges, but it’s not widely read and not printed on the ballot.

“I will say that as a citizen one of the things that has always puzzled me is the way we put retention votes on the ballot with no information about the judges,” McCoy said.

Former state Sen. Jeff Angelo (R-Creston) said changing fellow legislators’ minds can be as simple as talking one on one, hashing things out in caucus meetings or even talking through the media, even though that can be tough.

“Republicans like me have to talk with other Republicans about why we have to defend the independence of the courts, and we have to use the language that we use,” Angelo said.

The public is moving toward acceptance of same-sex marriage faster than expected, McCoy said, and many Republicans are also uneasy with some legislators’ attempts to dismantle the state’s current system for appointing judges.

“Ultimately I think in a situation where you have a Rep. Kim Pearson, you hear comments coming from my friends who are Republicans … and they definitely say the same things,” McCoy said.

Jeff Angelo

Angelo agreed with that assessment, also invoking Pearson‘s name. The freshman Republican legislator from Indianola has stepped out of line with her party on multiple issues, and has become the face in the Iowa House in a push to impeach the four remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices that voted unanimously for the Varnum decision.

“If I could be purely political, sometimes legislators love to look at poll numbers,” he said. “Sometimes you sit down with another legislator and you say ‘you’re killing us here, Rep. Pearson. You’re killing us.’ Sometimes that happens, I’m going to be very realistic about it.”

The comments were made at a series of panels held as part of an event called Defending Iowa’s Courts, held last week in Des Moines. About a dozen groups sponsored the event, including Lambda Legal, Justice not Politics, Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, One Iowa and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa.

The panelists discussed legislative attacks against Iowa’s courts following the Varnum v. Brien decision; how those attacks threaten judges’ ability to rule fairly and impartially; and how to engage communities to defend the state’s current court system.