The recent attacks on the Iowa system of judicial selection have sparked a heated debate among Iowans about the validity of Iowa’s current system of judicial appointment: the merit-based system.

In Iowa, the merit-based system allows a non-partisan nominating commission to interview candidates for each judicial vacancy, the commission then chooses a number of candidates to the governor for consideration and the governor chooses one of the applicants to fill the vacancy.

This merit-based system of judicial appointment has created one of the most nationally well-respected judicial systems that the state of Iowa has ever seen. In fact, a recent study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which examined state liability systems, rated Iowa fourth among the states on impartiality, thanks in large part to Iowa’s merit-based system of appointing judges. While Alabama and West Virginia, two states in which judges are chosen in partisan elections ranked at 47th and 50th.

It should come as no surprise to Iowans that our merit-based system has produced such a well-respected and impartial judiciary when one compares the merit-based system to the alternative of partisan elections. West Virginia and Alabama are two excellent examples of why Iowa should strongly reject a system that uses partisan elections to appoint members of the judiciary.

Not surprisingly, states that use partisan-based elections to appoint judges are less likely to be far less fair and impartial than a judicial system that uses a merit-based system to appoint judges. Why? Put simply, because there is less money involved. When a judge has to run in an election s/he needs to spend vast amounts of time and fundraising money.

Thus, if Iowa were to support a partisan election system this would mean that instead of a judge devoting his/her time to carefully considering a case or writing a judicial opinion, that they are instead using their time and energy to come up with ways to raise more money for their campaign. A judge’s focus should be on interpreting the letter of the law and if a system asks judges to spend their time searching for campaign contributions instead of protecting the rights of individual Iowans.

Moreover, the first place that a judge will look for money to fund his/her election will be to lawyers. This means that if a judge is elected it is likely that a large portion of their campaign contributions came from his/her community of lawyers. This means that some lawyers may try cases before judges to whose campaign they made contributions.

Regardless of any promise to maintain partiality it seems that allowing lawyers to try cases before judges to whom they have made contributions could lead to impartial rulings. If a judge is more concerned with winning a re-election than fairly evaluating a case on its facts and interpreting the law then it follows that a judge will need to continue to raise millions of dollars in order to find their campaigns. Thus, one risks the possibility of judges deciding cases based on their ability to please and retain campaign contributors rather than interpreting the law.

One example of the ills of creating a partisan-based election system of appointing judges can be seen in a recent West Virginia case. In West Virginia a mining company, A.T. Massey, contributed $3 million to the campaign of a Supreme Court Justice. A.T. Massey just so happened to have a case pending in the West Virginia Supreme Court and when this same candidate went on to win the election he placed the deciding vote in favor of A.T. Massey. Similarly, in a New York Times investigation recently reported that elected justices in Ohio voted in favor of their campaign contributors 70 percent of the time.

The practice of allowing partisan-elections into the judicial system would create an atmosphere in which there is exists the notion that judges are answerable to their wealthiest campaign contributors, many of whom will likely be lawyers who will come before that same judge in the future, or worse large corporations whose only interest is in profits. Such an act would clearly undermine the impartiality and integrity of the Courts.

A partisan election system of appointing judges could create a system in which our judges could be bought and sold to the highest bidder. Only a merit-based system of judicial appointment can protect the fair and impartial nature of the Iowa judicial system.