Democrats in the Iowa House are suing Gov. Kim Reynolds for signing into law new legislation that gives her and future governors more power in picking judges and justices to the state's top courts.

They're not just suing over the substance of the controversial law but the way it was handled in the Legislature. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday morning in Polk County District Court, claims the new law violates the Iowa Constitution because the bill that contained the change included multiple subjects. The Iowa Constitution, they argue, requires legislative acts to have only one subject, and for the subject to be reflected in the bill’s title “to prevent fraud and surprise.”

“The purpose of that is to give the public notice and not jam things through,” said Rep. Brian Meyer, a Des Moines Democrat and one of nine plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Pat Garrett, a spokesman for the governor, declined to comment on the case Wednesday.

Almost every state has a single subject rule in its constitution and those rules are frequently the subject of lawsuits, according to a 2017 Virginia Law Review article. The law review piece said that the rulings across the country have resulted in “vague, malleable” tests for what constitutes a single subject.

The law, which Reynolds signed this month, allows the governor to make nine appointments to the state nominating commission that helps choose Iowa Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeals judges. It gave Reynolds' appointees immediate control over the 17-member panel.

The lawsuit argues the changes to the judicial nominating commission and the process for electing the chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court run afoul of the constitution because it was part of a larger budget bill, not as standalone legislation.

The law, the plaintiffs argue, also infringes on the separation of powers required by the Iowa Constitution because it changes the way the chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court is elected. Previously, the chief justice was elected by the Supreme Court’s members and served for the duration of the justice’s eight-year term. The law changes the chief justice’s term to two years, with the possibility of reelection.

"It’s the Legislature dictating to the court how to run the judiciary and that’s improper," said Bob Rush, an Iowa attorney and one of the plaintiffs in the case. Rush does not serve in the Legislature.

The plaintiffs are asking that a judge block the law from being enforced and declare unconstitutional the provisions dealing with the judicial nominating commission and Iowa Supreme Court’s chief justice.

That could affect the ability of Reynolds' latest appointment to serve on the commission. Reynolds last week named Dan Huitink, a Pella attorney, as the ninth governor-appointed member of the commission. She said Huitink’s term would begin immediately, giving the governor’s appointees a majority on the commission for the first time.

Huitink, a Republican, gave a total of $500 to Reynolds' gubernatorial campaign in two separate donations in 2017 and 2018. He is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Meyer, Rush and House Democratic Reps. Rick Olson of Des Moines, Mary Mascher of Iowa City, Art Staed of Cedar Rapids, Liz Bennett of Cedar Rapids, Mark Smith of Marshalltown, Jo Oldson of Des Moines and Mary Wolfe of Clinton.

Along with Reynolds and Huitink, the lawsuit names as defendants Glen Dickinson, the director of the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency that helps draft legislation, and Leslie Hickey, a code editor hired by LSA to help publish Iowa code.

In 2008, the Iowa Supreme Court heard a case alleging that the Iowa Legislature violated the constitutional single subject rule. The court found that the plaintiff in that case, Gertrude Godfrey, did not have standing to bring the lawsuit. It did not rule on whether the Legislature violated the rule.

The practice of lawmakers adding policy language to budget bills has become more common in recent years in Iowa, though it often comes with criticism from the minority party. Republicans currently have a trifecta of power in state government, with majorities in the House and Senate and control of the governor's office.