Iowa: Justices must retire at age 72.

September 7, 2023 1:22 PM

Your State-by-State Guide to Every State Supreme Court (+ D.C. and Puerto Rico). Bolts Magazine explains the structure (5, 7, or 9 members?), selection procedures (gubernatorial appointment? statewide election?), and functions of each state’s highest court. Does this court have anything to do with setting bail schedules? Is it involved in certifying election results? Is anyone on its bench old enough they’ll soon have to retire? Will a vacancy spark a special election?
posted by spamandkimchi (4 comments total)

Nice tool. A pain for someone to keep up to date.
posted by 3.2.3 at 2:18 PM on September 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Bolts does amazing, useful and, yeah, very labor-intensive work;. They created similarly helpful guides for prosecutor and sheriff's races around the country last year. Thanks for this.
posted by mediareport at 4:08 PM on September 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

What's happening in NC right now is appalling: the GOP- controlled Judicial Standards Commission started a process ro remove Anita Earls, the only Black woman on the state high court, because she dared to suggest there's implicit bias in the justice system, perhaps including - gasp! - members of the NC Supreme Court. She responded by filing a federal lawsuit against the Commission on First Amendment grounds, asserting her right to "core political speech concerning important public policy questions regarding the justice system and administration of the courts."
posted by mediareport at 4:18 PM on September 7, 2023 [7 favorites]

Iowa SC done at 72? I thought that was a "Midsommar" thing.
posted by panglos at 9:18 AM on September 10, 2023