There is a commission that recommends judicial candidates, usually a slate of 8 or so, but the governor doesn't have to appoint from that list (and the governor recently did just that - bypassed the list to appoint somebody else).
And the governor only appoints in the case of resignation or removal, otherwise there are contested elections.
If a judge is a real bad actor, somebody will run against him.
I really question, though, who the fellow bringing this suit thinks is going to be able to choose judges, if not attorneys. Most of the electorate here can't even be bothered to vote in a contested judicial election, let alone actually spend time selecting the best candidate.
I think the lawsuit makes it clear that having a JD degree should not be the qualifier.
You make a good point about lazy voters, but anything is better than the Democrat party apparatus picking the judges.
Somewhere Iowa went off the track and regressed to the Federalist idea that only one person should have the franchise when it comes to selecting judges ~ to wit, the President.
That notion, of course, went right down the tube when Thomas Jefferson simply FIRED a bunch of federal judges of whom he did not approve when he took office ~ thereby neatly getting around the "remuneration shall not be diminished" standard AND the fact federal judges seemed to have unlimited appointments.
Later on during the period of initial organization and settlement of the Old Northwest ALL the judges in the new state governments were set up as elected jobs with limited terms.
The same was true in the Louisiana Territory (of which Iowa was once a part).
Jefferson, the President who fired judges, preferred that they also be elected by the people.
The modern standard adopted in too many states is that ONLY QUALIFIED people should be selected to be judges, and the franchise should be restricted to the Governor.
Obviously this is not a Jeffersonian idea, and it does run counter to not only early United States history, but to recent United States history.
Restriction of the franchise to lawyers is as ridiculous as restricting it to property owners of $5 billion net worth would be. If anything, our most recent experience with lawyers suggests that they should be TOTALLY DISENFRANCHISED. If they are to be officers of the court, they should be restricted to that job, and not allowed to be members of legislatures, nor commissions, nor any other office of profit or trust. Even if elected as a judge (yes, I'd let them run for judgeships) they should be forced to resign from the bar and foreswear any future membership in the bar. They can be a judge or a lawyer but not both!
The franchise for electing judges should be stripped from the governors and commissions and returned to the people as a whole.