Abby Finkenauer will appear on the ballot in the June Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, thanks to a decision handed down by the Iowa Supreme Court on Friday. The court voted 7-0 to reverse a Polk County District Court ruling that upheld objections brought by two Republicans to three signatures on Finkenauer’s nomination petition. Without those signatures, Finkenauer failed to meet the threshold of at least 100 signatures in 19 counties the Iowa Legislature set in 2021, when it raised requirements for candidates to qualify for elections.
One petition signer in Cedar County wrote “6-6” in the date space — the signatures above and below it are dated “2-6” — and the other singer in the county didn’t write any date. The address on a signature line on a petition from Allamakee County spilled over into the space for the date, so the signer’s zip code appears where the date should be.
Leanne Pellett, co-chair of the Cass County Republicans, and Kim Schmett, former chair of the Polk County Republicans, argued that because Iowa Code states a person signing a nomination petition “shall” write the date when they sign, the signatures were invalid, and therefore had to be excluded from the Democratic primary.
The State Objection Panel, the body that hears challenges to the qualifications of a candidate, rejected that argument, relying on the standard of “substantial compliance” it has used since 1988 when assessing petition objection, and ruling that the correct dates of the three otherwise valid signature could be readily determined by looking at the signatures above and below them. Pellett and Schmett appealed that decision to Polk County District Court.
At 10:49 p.m. on Sunday night, Judge Scott Beattie overturned the panel’s decision, saying it didn’t have the authority exercise independent judgment about whether to accept signatures with missing or incorrect dates. Beattie ordered Finkenauer’s name “not be included on the primary ballot for the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate.”
The State Objection Panel and the Finkenauer campaign filed an immediate appeal with the Iowa Supreme Court.
“Although including the date is a legal requirement when an eligible elector signs a nomination petition, the legislature passed legislation last year to identify the specific circumstances when objections to petitions shall be sustained,” the court said on Friday. “The legislature did not include missing or incorrect dates as one of the grounds for sustaining an objection to a petition.” [emphasis in the original]
That was the argument the attorneys for the panel and Finkenauer made to the justices: if the legislature wanted to disqualify a signature on the basis of an incorrect date, even when the actual date of the signature is easily determined, it could have done so when it revised Iowa election code in 2019 and 2021.
Justice Christopher McDonald wrote a separate concurring opinion in the case. During oral arguments on Wednesday, McDonald was the most aggressively skeptical of the panel’s and Finkenauer’s arguments. He suggested that if the State Objection Panel was allowed to exercise its judgment in the matter of dates, then in the future, candidates could submit petitions with no dates at all, meaning it would be impossible to determine such things as whether a signer was of legal age or a resident of Iowa at the time of signing.
McDonald’s opinion in the case is one sentence-long: “I concur only in the judgment.” He was joined in his opinion by Justice Dana Oxley.
In a written statement issued after the decision, Abby Finkenauer said, “The Iowa Supreme Court’s unanimous decision today has affirmed that we are right on the law, and that we will be on the ballot for U.S. Senate. This is a moment for all advocates for democracy — Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — to celebrate the enduring strength of our democratic process and a reminder to never take it for granted.”
The primary election will be held Tuesday, June 7. Finkenauer’s name will now appear on the ballot, along with those of Mike Franken and Glenn Hurst. The winner will take on seven-term incumbent Sen. Chuck Grassley in the November general election.