Gavel Grab

In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts:

• Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins praised the state’s system of retention (up-or-down) elections for top court justices, saying the only problem with it is that a candidate is running against the notion of an ideal jurist, according to a Daily Iowan article.

• A Kansas House panel narrowly advanced a bill that would change the state’s merit selection system and require state Senate confirmation of judges appointed by the governor to the state Court of Appeals, according to a Topeka Capital-Journal article.

• Judge David R. Thompson, a senior judge on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has died. “You’d be hard pressed to find a more decent, thoughtful, smart, judicious, and modest man,” wrote Rick Hasen, who once clerked for the judge, in his Election Law blog. A Ninth Circuit obituary for Judge Thompson is available here.