Judicial Selection Process Focus Of Debate At Eggs And Issues

Dustin Hite (R) (standing) talks about potential changes to the judicial nominating commissions.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The temperatures were up for Mahaska County, and a slight rain was falling, adding to the water puddles already increasing in size.

Inside of Smokey Row, things also heated up, when Oskaloosa attorney and Mahaska County Democrat Party Chair Eric Palmer quizzed the trio of legislators about legislation that would change how the Judicial Nominating Committee is chosen.

Dustin Hite (R), Iowa House District 79, also an attorney from Oskaloosa, addressed the topic in his opening statement on judicial nominating committee reform. “For those that don’t know, we select our judges in the state of Iowa with a system of commissions. We have a state commission for the supreme court and the court of appeals. You have a district nominating commission, for all the district court judges, and then we have magistrate nominating commissions in each county.”

Hite said that the proposed changes wouldn’t impact the magistrate nominating commission. “The other ones are made up of, each of them are made up of half governor appointees, and half people elected by members of the bar. So lawyers. They all have, also, one judge or justice on them.”

“House Study Bill 110 originally provided that that was going to change just a little bit, that the lawyers would no longer elect any representatives, but instead those would be appointed by the majority and minority parties of the House and the Senate,” explained Hite.

“On Wednesday night, that came before the House Judiciary Committee. I actually chaired that meeting because the bill was being run by our committee chair,” said Hite. “We had a substantial change in that bill, and the change basically did, where we pretty much leave the district courts alone. The lawyers will still elect half. Half will still be appointed by the governor. And now the supreme court, instead of it being the most senior judge, the supreme court will select somebody to be on that commission. The state nominating commission, again, will stay half appointed by the governor, half appointed by house and senate majority and minority party leadership. The supreme court will get to select somebody on that commission.”

“Another big change in that bill and I was part of the amendment process to get this change done. Another big change in that bill is that the state nominating commission will make uniform rules that apply to all of the commissions throughout the state,” explained Hite. “So that passed out of the House Judiciary Committee. It’s now headed to the House floor. The Senate passed the original bill. I assume that they will amend that.”

Palmer, at an earlier Eggs and Issues, had said that he hoped he didn’t have to ask the question again in regards to the Judicial Nominating Commissions. “Low and behold, here we are.”

“Representative Hite, I understand you have voted in favor of this change in the judicial nominating commissions? Is that correct?” asked Palmer.

“I voted for the amended bill, yes, to get out of committee onto the House floor,” responded Hite.

“Have you decided how you are going to vote on the final bill,” Palmer responded.

“I haven’t. I think there’s still some room for change on that bill. But right now I’m probably in favor of what is headed to the House floor, and I can certainly explain that to you Eric, if you’d like.”

Palmer then asked Rep. Holly Brink (R), Iowa House District 80, how she would vote on the bill being discussed.

“I haven’t seen the full amended part yet, so I have not,” responded Brink.

“Senator Rozenboom, I going to assume you’re going to vote for whatever bill that gets out of the House and the Senate. Is that correct?” asked Palmer of Sen. Ken Rozenboom (R), District 40.

“That’s not a safe assumption,” responded Rozenboom. “I try and be very thoughtful. You know the process, Eric. There’s the amendment process. I don’t know what comes out the far end of that, but that’s when I’ll make my decision on it.”

“Representative Hite, you talked about a month ago, you said it would take some compelling reasons for you to change our system. As you know, our system is regarded nationwide as one of the model systems for selecting judges in a non-political manner,” said Palmer to Hite. “You’ve served on a couple of those commissions, and you’re a conservative Republican, and I voted for you to serve on some of those commissions. So what are the compelling reasons that are getting us to change the system, that nationwide is regarded as one of the best.”

Hite responded to Palmer by saying, “I think you can agree with me just because it’s regarded as one of the best, that doesn’t mean we can stop improving the system. Would you agree at least with that?”

“Well, I haven’t seen anything that’s an improvement. Governor Vilsack and I are on the same page on this one. Why tinker with something that seems to work,” Palmer responded.

“But you would agree with me that if improvements can be made, we ought to make those improvements. We should always try to make things better, even if they may be the best in the nation,” Hite said in response to Palmer.

Palmer pointed out that two groups have registered themselves in favor of the bill, the Kock Brothers and The Family Leader. “When I was in the legislature, we typically had a broad range of folks in favor of a bill, and that was a pretty good indication a bill was going to pass. You have two groups in favor of this bill and a number of important groups registered against it. So I’m not sure what these compelling changes are. Why we need to make any changes to a system most people recognize is one of the best in the country.”

Hite pointed out that Palmer had “avoided my question three times. So I’ll answer that question. I think absolutely regardless of what, if we’re the best, we should always try to be better, and I think we can all agree with that.”

“Here’s what I’ve learned since that time Eric, and this is why I’ve worked to make changes as they now stand,” said Hite. “I sat on the district nominating commission for Judicial District 8A, and I sat on the Mahaska County Magistrate Nominating Commission. We’re not doing anything with the Magistrate Nominating Commission so I won’t talk about those.”

Hite continued by saying, “What I have found with the district nominating commissions is that it works pretty good. As you said, as a local attorney, in District 8A, it takes ten signatures to get your name on a petition of other attorney’s. You’ve got to be voted in by your fellow attorneys. Being a part of the district, you kind of know everybody. It’s easy to get around, whether you’re a probate lawyer, whether your a real estate lawyer, even if you are a corporate lawyer, you probably know a bunch of the attorneys in the district. The issues that have come forth to me are, trying to get on the state nominating commission. You know how many lawyer signatures you need to get on that petition?”

Palmer responded with, “No I don’t.”

“You need 50,” said Hite. “I don’t know exactly how many lawyers are in Oskaloosa, but it’s way less than 50. If you are in rural Iowa, if you’re a lawyer in rural Iowa, you’ve got to go to many different towns to get those signatures. The other part of that is, people can only sign one nominating petition. So if people have signed another one, you’re out of luck.”

“Second. To be voted in, as you know, when you vote on state nominating commission on a congressional district. So our congressional district goes from here, clear over to the Mississippi River. If you are an attorney that’s not in litigation a lot, where you are not a high profile, it’s really hard to garner the support to get elected to the state nominating commission. Not impossible, but very difficult,” explained Hite.

“As you noticed, we just elected an attorney from Iowa City. He replaced an attorney from Iowa City, and they tend to be high profile people. Big names. I think an Eric Palmer should be on the state nominating commission. They should have an opportunity,” Hite continued. “So the state nominating commission is not working as well as it could be.”

“Second. The statement that I hear from the Democrats all the time is that this is going to politicize the system. Well Eric, you and I both know something that probably most people in this room do not know. The last election for the state judicial nominating commission for our district, one of the candidates sent out election mail. Sent out flyers just like I do. We don’t have campaign finance that I’m aware of. We don’t have campaign finance for people running. We don’t have ethics rules for people running, and if we don’t change this, we’re certainly going to need to do that. To say that it’s not political, but we’ve got people actively campaigning to get on there.”

“So those are some of the issues that I think are there with the current system,” Hite said. “I’m happy to hear solutions. Democrats have even acknowledged that being a rural Iowa attorney makes it really difficult to get on these commissions, but I’ve not heard a solution to fix that, other than what’s proposed now.”

Palmer said that the attorney who sent out the political mail lost. “He put on a very political campaign, and I think most of us attorneys, whether we’re small or big city attorneys, were turned off by the politicization of this process.”

Palmer went on to say, “This is going to give the commission that appoints judges to the supreme court, or selects choices for the supreme court, is, under your proposal, is going to have 12 people by the majority party out of the 16, and that’s politicization. That’s the problem.”

“I agree with you, Eric. There’s a lot of attorneys that didn’t vote for that person because of it [campaign mail], but next time, I would almost bet, and we can talk about sports betting later, but I would almost bet that we’re going to see a lot more of that campaign literature, and I don’t like it either,” added Hite. “But to say it’s not a political process now is just false.”

The debate will continue at the Iowa Legislature this week on the issue.