Brent Appel

Brent Appel

Nonpartisan

Prior offices

Iowa Supreme Court

Successor: David May

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Education

Bachelor's

Stanford University, 1973

Graduate

Stanford University, 1973

Law

University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, 1977

Brent Appel was a judge of the Iowa Supreme Court. He assumed office in 2006. He left office on July 12, 2022.

Appel first became a member of the court by appointment. He was appointed by Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack in 2006 to succeed Justice James Carter. Appel was retained by voters in 2008 and again in 2016. To read more about judicial selection in Iowa, click here.

In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court. Appel received a confidence score of Strong Democrat. Click here to read more about this study.

Appel previously served as Iowa's deputy attorney general from 1983 until 1987.

Biography

Appel received his B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University in 1973 and his J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law in 1977.

He worked as a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed Iowa first assistant attorney general in 1979, then became Iowa deputy attorney general in 1983. Appel was an attorney in private practice from 1987 to 2006, when he was appointed to the Iowa Supreme Court. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Appel to the Federal Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence in 2010. Appel served as a member of the committee until 2016. As of July 2021, he chairs the state supreme court's Access to Justice Commission.

Elections

2016

See also: Iowa Supreme Court elections, 2016

Brent Appel was retained in the Iowa Supreme Court election with 64.36% of the vote.

Iowa Supreme Court, Appel's seat, 2016
Name	Yes votes
Brent Appel	64.36%
Source: Iowa Secretary of State Official Results

2008

Appel was retained to the supreme court with 72.4 percent of the vote.

Analysis

Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)

See also: Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship and Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters

Last updated: June 15, 2020

In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.

The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.

The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:

• Strong Democrat
• Mild Democrat
• Indeterminate
• Mild Republican
• Strong Republican

This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.

Brent
Appel

Iowa

• Partisan Confidence Score:
  Strong Democrat
• Judicial Selection Method:
  Assisted appointment through hybrid judicial nominating commission
• Key Factors:
  • Donated over $2,000 to Democratic candidates
  • Held political office as a Democrat
  • Was a registered Democrat before 2020

Partisan Profile

Details:

Appel donated $56,215 to Democratic candidates and organizations. He served as the First Assistant Attorney General under Iowa Attorney General Thomas Miller (D). Appel was a registered Democrat prior to 2020. He was appointed by Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) in 2006.

Other Scores:

In a 2012 study of campaign contributions, Appel received a campaign finance score of -0.88, indicating a liberal ideological leaning.

Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)

See also: Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores of state supreme court justices, 2012

In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.

Appel received a campaign finance score of -0.88, indicating a liberal ideological leaning. This was more liberal than the average score of 0.21 that justices received in Iowa.

The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.

Noteworthy cases

AFSCME Council 61 v. Iowa and Iowa State Education Association v. Iowa (2019)

In two separate rulings issued on May 17, 2019, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a 2017 law that amended collective bargaining rights for the state's public-sector workforce. The court ruled 4-3 in the state's favor in both cases.

In 2017, then-Gov. Terry Branstad (R) signed into law a series of amendments to Iowa's public-sector labor relations law. As a result, collective bargaining units with less than 30 percent public-safety personnel (defined generally as firefighters and police officers) were barred from negotiating insurance, hours, vacations, holidays, overtime, and health and safety issues unless their employers elected to do so. Collective bargaining units exceeding the 30-percent threshold were exempted from these restrictions.

The plaintiffs, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 61 (AFSCME Council 61) and the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), argued the amendments violated their equal protection and associational rights under the state constitution. The defendants were the state of Iowa and the Iowa Public Employment Relations Board. Both cases were filed in state district courts, which ruled against the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs appealed these decisions to the state supreme court.

In each case, the court ruled 4-3 in the state's favor. In the majority opinion covering both cases, Justice Thomas Waterman wrote: "The 2017 amendments do not infringe on a fundamental right of association. The plaintiffs 'come to us with a problem suitable only for political solution.' The plaintiffs are free to attempt to persuade public employers, such as the State and local governments and school boards, to voluntarily bargain over formerly mandatory terms. The plaintiffs otherwise must look to the ballot box and the elected branches to change this lawfully enacted statute." Justices Susan Christensen, Edward Mansfield, and Christopher McDonald joined Waterman’s opinion.

Chief Justice Mark Cady and Justices Brent Appel and David Wiggins dissented. In his dissent, Cady wrote: "[The] Iowa statute ends up treating many similarly situated public employees in Iowa differently based solely on the bargaining unit they belong to and not for the reason the constitution would justify different treatment of public employees. Our constitution requires laws to treat similarly situated people equally unless there is an adequate reason otherwise. In this case, the overinclusiveness and underinclusiveness written into the statute drowned this reason out."

State supreme court judicial selection in Iowa

See also: Judicial selection in Iowa

The seven justices on the Iowa Supreme Court are selected through the assisted appointment method. When a vacancy occurs on the supreme court, the State Judicial Nominating Commission submits a list of three potential nominees to the governor, who appoints one to serve as a judge. The commission consists of 17 members—nine appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Iowa State Senate and eight (two from each congressional district) elected by lawyers.

Iowa law states that no more than a simple majority of the state nominating commission may be of the same gender.

Newly appointed judges serve for one year after their appointment. They must then compete in a yes-no retention election (occurring during the regularly scheduled general election) if they wish to remain on the court. They then serve eight-year terms.

Qualifications

To serve on this court, a judge must be:

• licensed to practice law in the state;
• a member of the Iowa bar;
• a resident of the state, district, or county to which they are appointed; and
• under the age of 72.

Note: Retirement at 72 is mandatory, though older judges may apply to become a senior judge. Senior judges must work a minimum of 13 weeks a year and are to receive a monthly retirement annuity and an annual stipend. They must retire at age 78 (or 80, if reappointed by the supreme court for additional one-year terms).

Chief justice

The chief justice of the supreme court is elected by peer vote and serves a two-year term.

Vacancies

See also: How vacancies are filled in state supreme courts

If a midterm vacancy occurs on the court, the seat is filled as it normally would be if the vacancy occurred at the end of a judge's term. A judicial nominating commission recommends qualified candidates to the governor and the governor selects a successor from that list. The new appointee serves for at least one year and then stands for retention.

The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.