May I share my perspective on the recent discussion of changing the judicial selection process in Iowa?

First, the bona fides. My wife and I have been on the 2nd District Judicial Nominating Commission. I’ve also been on the 3rd Judicial Nominating Commission in Northwest Iowa, and on the State Nominating Commission, which got especially interesting when Sharon was one of the nominees and our rules cost her my abstention instead of my vote.

Each of us has made the final-two cut for the governor to pick us to serve on the Court of Appeals. Gov. Chet Culver chose Judge Mary Tabor over me, and we’ve been impressed with her. Gov. Terry Branstad picked Judge Christopher McDonald over Sharon, and he too turned out to be a good pick. Sharon and I were each went through the process of interviewing the commissioners to serve on the Iowa Supreme Court.

We’ve served in a variety of leadership capacities in our profession. At ages 66 and 63, we have no intention of serving on another judicial nominating committee, nor of applying to be a judge. Our main goal now is to have the younger lawyers in our office enjoy the practice with a top-quality judiciary for decades to come.

By the way, politically, Sharon and I are moderates. Her dad was John Soorholtz, who served 10 years in the Iowa Senate then 10 years as county supervisor (and as president of the National Pork Producers). He is the only Iowa Republican I know to have received the UAW endorsement, so you know he was a moderate. I grew up a Democrat in Spencer, but I switched to Republican in the 80s so I could at least vote in the primaries. After we moved here from Steve King country, I switched back to Democrat. Have you ever met anyone else who has been a state delegate to both the Republican and Democrat conventions?

Voting for judges, or letting politicians pick them, would spoil the best and fairest system in the country. My year as Iowa State Bar Association president allowed me to go to multi-state and national bar meetings. Iowa is the envy of every other state for the way we select, not elect judges, the way the bar and judiciary get along, the quality of the judiciary and the caliber of the bar as well. When vice president of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association in the mid-80s, I traveled to California, Michigan, Vermont and Texas in order to help the local lawyers solicit PAC funds for their state trial lawyer associations. Texas was the shocker. Two local Houston lawyers and I would go into a large, wealthy law office, where we were likely to be rebuffed with the excuse that the firm was having to spend too much on advertising (Iowa allowed none then) and way too much (like $20,000 to $50,000 even back then) supporting judges in their races for votes – sometimes supporting both judges running for the same spot. They admitted their clients would suffer if they did not contribute to a judge’s campaign and then found themselves in her courtroom. And the billboards between airport and downtown were pretty hideous then, too.

Iowa’s judiciary has consistently received the top marks from the national Chamber of Commerce. Iowa law has a rich history of affording civil rights in decisions filed decades before similar U.S Supreme Court decisions. Proponents of the change are running ads attacking “liberal trial lawyers” as the ones responsible for selecting “activist judges.” A dwindling percentage of lawyers handle jury trials (there were only 179 civil cases tried to Iowa juries in 2017), and I would venture to guess that for each liberal lawyer there is a conservative lawyer. And because judges have to be lawyers, it is fellow lawyers who can best know and select who among them will make fair, impartial and temperate judges. The current commissions are made up of half lay people selected by the governor and half lawyers elected by Iowa lawyers. The system has worked very well since 1962. Let’s please not politicize the process.