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Nine nominees for Iowa Supreme Court sent to Governor Branstad
January 28, 2011
Iowa: Now Iowans are at most thirty days away from discovering who will become their three new Supreme Court justices. After four days of interviewing 61 candidates, the Iowa Judicial Nominating Commission chose nine potential nominees for Governor Terry Branstad. He will have thirty days to announce the three justices appointed to succeed the justices that were not retained in the November election.[1]
Those nominees are:
- Robert J. Blink, District Court judge;
- Edward Mansfield, judge on the Iowa Court of Appeals;
- Attorney Steven Lawyer;
- Law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig;
- Attorney John Gray;
- Michael R. Mullins, District Court judge;
- Attorney Thomas Waterman; and
- Bruce B. Zager, District Court judge.[1]
Unlike the interviews with the commission, the final talks between the candidates and Governor Branstad will not be made public. While some are critical of this aspect of judicial selection, the governor says that there are certain questions to which the candidates might not be so forthcoming if they were aired. He did, however, applaud the commission for conducting its interviews in public and making the selection process more transparent.[2]
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