Posted on 11/18/2016 4:47:55 AM PST by US Navy Vet
The long-time leader of Democrats in the Iowa Senate is cleaning out his capitol office after 34 years in the legislature.
“I’ve had a great run at this, great fun, learned a lot,” says Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs.
Last week, Gronstal was defeated in his bid for another term in the state senate. Gronstal told Radio Iowa he has no real regrets
(Excerpt) Read more at radioiowa.com ...
No?
Just run away, eh?
All the Rats hold still in Iowa is the lifer AG and a rigged judicial nominating system which ensures lib picks even under GOP rule. Latter needs amendment to fix, a process that can finally be started now Gronstal is gone.
No, you would not be wrong.
Interesting comments about Judicial Selection process. How would you change it?
We have something similar in AZ, I believe.
The State has given a private entity, the Bar Association, most of the power of Supreme Court picks.
The Bar Association picks three candidates, and the Governor gets to chose one of them.
Iowa’s method is similar.. But first the Judicial Nomination Committee (appointed by Governor, but, by law the committee must be politically and gender balanced),, the committee selects 2 names and forwards to the Governor. For his selection. The Bar Assn has nothing to do with it,, and as I see it, that’s a good thing. The Bar Assn is an elitist club, who preform well in the classroom and test well. But not always grounded with common sense.
There were a bunch of good articles posted 5-6 years ago at the Iowa Republican (a once active site that hasn't seemed to have anything new posted to it since last winter, I don't know why), mostly by Nathan Tucker. He did an excellent job explaining the status quo, its problems and offered some suggestions. I'm not expert on the subject, but his suggestions strike me as a good starting point and allegedly are along the lines Gov. Branstad favored back then. Here are some links to get you started. The last three are by Tucker. The first offers a good intro to the problem and references Tucker's first article. His thoughts for changes are in the last link. I seem to recall Tucker having written more than this on the subject, but I'm not sure all his stuff is still online. Change would require amending Iowa's constitution, which, IIRC, requires repeated legislative action over 2-3 years to put it the ballot. It would also require significant political effort to get it passed, as evidenced by Iowa Freepers not being aware of a problem. But with the Senate unblocked it is at least conceivable to proceed now.
Iowa’s Partisan Judicial Selection Process | The Iowa Republican
Judicial Nominating Commissions – Merit or Partisan? | The Iowa Republican
Thank you. You are correct, it will take a Constitutional Amendment for change. And that means it must be passed in exactly the same form by 2 consecutive Sessions of the Legislature. A Session is 2 years long, so it would be possible to pass it first in the second year of a Session and then again in the first year. It’s a heavy lift to get Freshman Legislators to do something as heady as revising the Constitution, so the 3 years you suggested is a good bet.
Because it must be passed by consecutive sessions all the House and half the Senate face an election in between. That tends to stop controversial and unpopular amendments from getting started. My expectation, and hope, is that returning members of the House and Senate GOP caucuses and Gov. Brandstad have long wish lists of legislation they couldn’t get past Gronstal et al. Much should already be in legislative language from prior failed efforts. They should compare notes and get as much of that they judge appropriate through as quickly and efficiently as possible. Responding to changes coming from Trump and DC will likely take up significant legislative time. They may not have enough time to everything they’d like; do the stuff THEIR electorate will notice and like FIRST so they have achievements on which to run for the next election. Putting this off to the second year makes more sense to me.
Trust me when I say I understand the complexity of the situation. I served 20 years in the GA.
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