Good for Iowa!

Iowa is grappling with efforts to change it's judicial selection process away from a "selection and retention vote" process.  The current effort to elect judges and abandon the "hybrid merit selction" process comes on the heels of Iowa's Supreme Court decision last year to recognize same sex marriages. 

The story at the Sioux City Journal is instructive, in the sense that legal experts with the Iowa bar, and the courts are warning the citizens of the dangers inhernet in judicial campaigns focused on an isolated decision rendered in good conscience by an independent judiciary.  This is the debate, that every state in the union should be having with its citizens.  The Bad Lawyer struggles with this debate.  I'm horrified for you, the citizens of OurState, when I look at a lot of the folks we call Judge who you elected because they are named Irishname, Italianname, and so on. 

On the otherhand, take away direct election and the "merit" process will tend to homogenize a certain sort of "elite" that we need to guard against.  Seriously, watch out for the bowtie crowd!