Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com.
Here we go again.
Don’t be surprised if there is a hard-fought campaign between now and the November election over a guy named David May. You may not recognize his name. But you will in the weeks to come.
May is the newest member of the Iowa Supreme Court. His name will be on the ballot in November, with voters having the opportunity to weigh in on whether he should be retained as one of the high court’s seven justices.
May is a native of Kirksville, Missouri. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Oklahoma before earning his law degree from Drake University in 1998.
May was in private legal practice in Des Moines until 2016, when Governor Terry Branstad appointed him as a District Court judge. Three years later, Governor Kim Reynolds appointed him to the Iowa Court of Appeals. Two years ago, Reynolds chose him to fill an Iowa Supreme Court vacancy following Justice Brent Appel’s retirement.
But that is not why May likely will become a household name this autumn.
That will occur because he was among the four Supreme Court justices who decided in June that the state can enforce Iowa’s near-total abortion ban, which Republicans approved during a special legislative session in July 2023. Supporters of pregnant women’s right to choose whether to have an abortion have been talking up the idea of using the November retention referendum on May to convey their disagreement with the Supreme Court’s decision.
My friend Rekha Basu, the retired Des Moines Register columnist, wrote recently about efforts by a group called Iowans for Reproductive Freedom. The organization has not taken an official position on Justice May, although it has purchased billboards around Des Moines bearing messages like “Keep Government Out of Women’s Health Care” and “If Men Got Pregnant, We Wouldn’t Be Discussing This.”
One of the group’s founders, Lea DeLong of Des Moines, wrote a letter that is circulating among like-minded people. In that letter, she writes, “It is an unfortunate development in our society that these kinds of actions against judges must happen, but I’m afraid we have had to learn some sad lessons from those who deny the rights of women.”
DeLong told Basu, “The ideological bias of this court does not reflect the will of most Iowans, and I’m not sure how far it follows the constitution.”
Iowans for Reproductive Freedom is taking a page right from the playbook of conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats and his organization, the FAMiLY Leader. He and others were angered by the Iowa Supreme Court’s unanimous 2009 decision finding the state discriminated against same-sex couples by limiting civil marriage to couples of opposite gender. Vander Plaats and others successfully campaigned against retaining three Supreme Court justices in 2010.
Iowans who thought retaliation was wrong then for one decision (among the hundreds that Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit had made) should not be rationalizing now why retribution against David May is somehow different and right.
Either your principles are carefully thought out and are firmly held, or your principles are as flexible as a foam pool noodle and you stand by them only when convenient.
Two Des Moines attorneys, Guy Cook and Cynthia Moser, both former presidents of the Iowa State Bar Association, are of the firmly-held-principles school of thought. They wrote in a recent guest column for the Des Moines Register, “Voting Justice May out will not, and cannot, change the opinion of the Iowa Supreme Court.”
They continued: “As children, we all learned the timeless proverb that two wrongs don’t make a right, a straightforward concept that sums up the enduring wisdom that responding to a perceived or real injustice with another act of injustice or wrongdoing is never justified or ethical.”
It is entirely proper to disagree with a judge’s ruling. Judges and attorneys often disagree over what a law means. Trying to oust an honorable member of the court because of such a disagreement moves us one step closer to judges making their decisions based public opinion, not on guiding legal doctrines.
Cook and Moser explained it this way:
Reasonable people can, and do, disagree on abortion restrictions and reproductive rights.
Indeed, three Iowa Supreme Court Justices, including the chief justice, did just that, with detailed and forceful dissenting opinions. […]
[W]hen citizens disagree with a court’s interpretation of a law, they can petition the Legislature to amend the law, or, if they disagree with a court’s interpretation of the Constitution, they have the power to seek to amend the Constitution.
Perpetuating the cycle of retribution that Bob Vander Plaats launched fourteen years ago will not change how Iowa law views abortion. It will only serve to further undermine judicial independence in our state.
Iowans should not want that, regardless of what side we are on with one issue or another.
Editor’s note from Laura Belin: Here is the full text of the email circulating among those who oppose Justice May’s retention in November.
Hello, Reproductive Freedom friends:
You might already know that David May, one of the justices on the Iowa Supreme Court (yes, the one that voted to severely restrict abortion rights in Iowa) is up for a retention vote in November. He is David May, a Reynolds appointee, who is among the justices who gave Iowa one of the most restrictive rulings in the nation against the rights of women.
Remember what the “pro-life” people did when the Iowa Supreme Court voted to allow marriage equality! It is an unfortunate development in our society that these kinds of actions against judges must happen, but I’m afraid we have had to learn some sad lessons from those who deny the rights of women. It is well know that most Iowans do not support these draconian restrictions on women’s lives and decisions.
If you are able, please copy this letter and paste into a new email, sign your own name and send to family and friends. Ask them to do the same and send to their families and friends. Let’s get a chain letter going!
This vote is another opportunity for us to advocate for the rights of women.