DES MOINES – A newly formed group called Iowans Concerned About Judges

is asking about 80 judges who are up for retention this November to declare their positions on a number of controversial issues.

The group, made up of a handful of conservative organizations, contends Iowans have a right to know how judges feel about issues including same-sex marriage, abortion, assisted suicide, eminent domain and displaying the Ten Commandments in courtrooms and schools.

The five-page judicial questionnaire, containing 15 questions, was e-mailed this month to judges who are up for retention. The two-week deadline to return the form is Thursday.

Chuck Hurley, president of the Iowa Family Policy Center, said voters want to be informed when deciding whether to retain judges. Part of their concern, he said, is that judicial activism has crept into the American judiciary. The questionnaire aims to bring accountability, he added.

“For us to vote for that powerful and influential of ruler, without good information, it’s citizen malpractice,” Hurley said. His organization is part of Iowans Concerned About Judges along with the Iowa Christian Alliance, Concerned Women for America of Iowa, Professional Educators of Iowa and Focus on the Family.

In Iowa, judges are appointed through a merit-selection process that was approved by voters in the 1960s. Judges in Iowa do not face an opponent in retention elections, but instead voters decide whether to keep a judge in office. Supreme court judges are up for retention every eight years, while court of appeals and district court judges are up every six years.

Drake University politics professor Rachel Paine Caufield, consultant for the American Judicature Society’s Hunter Center for Judicial Selection, said the questionnaire doesn’t tap into a judge’s understanding of Iowa law, but instead is “purely politically motivated.”

“Basic respect for the judiciary would indicate that voters shouldn’t want judges to respond to these questionnaires,” she said.

“If you want your courts to be fair and impartial . then that requires some restraint on the part of judges themselves.”

Hurley said the questionnaire states that the judges’ responses indicate their “current views on issues and do not constitute any pledge, promise or commitment to reach any particular result in a case.”

He added that Iowa’s Code of Judicial Conduct was recently changed to reflect a U.S. Supreme Court decision that banned restrictions on judicial candidates’ ability to give their views on legal or political issues.