Gov. Kim Reynolds names district court judge to Iowa Supreme Court

District court judge Susan Christensen, a self-proclaimed voice for rural Iowa, was named Wednesday as the third woman in Iowa's history who will serve on the state's high court.

Until Christensen's appointment by Gov. Kim Reynolds, Iowa had been the only state in the country in 2018 to have an all-male supreme court. A registered Republican, Christensen will fill the vacancy created when Justice Bruce Zager retires from the seven-member court next month.

MORE: See Christensen's full application and video interview here.

After Wednesday's announcement at the Iowa Capitol, Christensen said she was "honored and humbled to be appointed to the Iowa Supreme Court by Iowa's first female governor."

"To my soon new colleagues on the Iowa Supreme Court, I look forward to working with you — and dusting off the ladies’ room," Christensen said.

She was born and raised in Harlan and practiced law there for 16 years before becoming a district associate judge in 2007 and a district court judge in 2011. Harlan residents who run into her at the grocery store still refer to her as "my attorney" when introducing her to friends or family, she has said.

She has said she will continue living and working in Shelby County as a justice and will travel to Des Moines as needed for court business.

Reynolds praised Christensen's rural roots and said Christensen understands how the Iowa Supreme Court's decisions affect Iowans across the state.

"I’m proud that Judge Christensen will now be continuing her distinguished career of service to all Iowans on the Iowa Supreme Court," Reynolds said.

Reynolds invited media to the event, but left with Christensen without taking questions.

Reynolds chose Christensen over Terri Combs, a West Des Moines attorney, and Kellyann Lekar, the chief district court judge in Iowa’s First Judicial District.

The three finalists were named by a state judicial nominating commission on July 10. Under Iowa's merit selection process for appointing judges, the commission chooses three names from the pool of applicants and sends them to the governor, who must make her choice within 30 days. Christensen will face a retention election in 2020.

Reynolds met with all three finalists last month. She has previously said of her decision-making process that "I want somebody that will follow the law and would revere the Constitution."

In her interview with the nominating commission, Christensen emphasized her rural perspective.

One way her voice could have an impact on the Iowa Supreme Court is in issues about access to justice in rural areas. This year, the Iowa Judicial Branch warned that up to 30 counties could lose court services if steep proposed budget cuts were enacted. Those cuts did not occur, but Christensen said she wants to be at the table when such conversations happen in the future.

"I think I would be a good ear and a good voice for the rural communities on the importance of having access everywhere,” she said. “It’s been said that access to our system, the judicial system, is like a safe highway: Everyone expects our highways to be safe, no matter where you live in our state. And I think that’s true for access to justice, too, no matter where you live."

Christensen also spoke to the nominating commission about her experience as a juvenile court judge, which, she said, "gave me a good dose of judicial temperament."

"Oh my goodness, what you can see in there," she said. "I’ve laughed. I’ve cried. I’ve had law enforcement remove people from the courtroom. I’ve had a cup of urine placed on my bench because they thought I’d want to have that, thinking I was going to test them."

She said in her written application for the job that she has a passion for improving the lives of children involved in the child welfare system, which began when she was an assistant Shelby County attorney prosecuting child abuse and neglect cases.

In her application, Christensen said her experience as a district court judge will "provide a needed perspective" on the Iowa Supreme Court. Zager is the only justice currently on the court to have been appointed directly after serving as a district court judge.

"Because of the practical insights I have gained through my trial court experience, I would be very comfortable deciding the most complex and consequential of those cases on appeal," she wrote in her application.

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Christensen is the mother of five children, including a son, Nicholas, who was born with cerebral palsy. During her interview with the commission, she described him as a "gold strand" running through the tapestry of her life, and spoke of her pride at raising him with her husband, Jay.

"We were 20 years old. We had no clue what to do," she told the commission. "There is no such thing as Google in the early ’80s. We learned by trial and error, and I think that is the accomplishment for which I am the absolute most proud — is to raise that child, who is now a young man, into a confident person."

Another part of Christensen’s tapestry is her father, former Iowa Supreme Court Justice Jerry Larson, who died in April and holds the record as the longest-serving justice in Iowa history. He served on the court from 1978 to 2008.

In an emotional moment during her interview with the nominating commission, Christensen grew teary when asked how her father affected her views and how she would serve on the court. She said his work left "a huge footprint" on the state and that he has affected her in a positive way. But she emphasized that she has worked to show she is committed to the Iowa judiciary.

"I think a lot of people think I’m sitting here today because of my dad, and I’m not," she said.

On Wednesday, Christensen said her dad "is here with me today in spirit, and I know there's a huge smile on his face right now."

Jerry Anderson, the dean of Drake Law School, said Christensen will bring diversity to the court in several ways, including through her trial court experience, her rural background and her gender.

"I think it’s going to be very good, from that perspective, in terms of diversifying the court in several different ways," he said of her appointment.

Anderson said it's not generally obvious how district court judges like Christensen will rule on the type of hot-button issues to come before the supreme court, like abortion.

"It’s really difficult to read anything into their decision because they just don’t get that type of case very often and when they do they have to follow the higher courts," he said.

The Iowa Supreme Court issued a landmark 5-2 decision in June that concluded Iowa women have a fundamental right to abortion under the Iowa Constitution. The justices threw out a 72-waiting period for abortions that Iowa legislators approved in 2017, but which had been placed on hold during a legal challenge by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland.

Another abortion case could come before the Iowa Supreme Court soon in the form of a lawsuit over a "fetal heartbeat" law signed by Reynolds earlier this year.

Anderson said he doesn't know how Christensen would vote in such a case, but added, "there would be no legitimate reason to revisit a decision from the year before." When courts reverse their past decisions, he said, it's generally because something significant has changed to cause them to do so.

"Justices, in general, are very reluctant to completely overturn decisions that they’ve made because it would undermine the legitimacy of the court to have decisions basically go back and forth all the time," he said.

Susan Christensen

• Current job: District Court Judge, Fourth Judicial District
• Residence: Harlan
• Age: 56
• See her full application and video interview here.