Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger
Southern Iowa U.S. District Court
Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger was born in July 1975 in Clearwater, Florida. She earned an undergraduate degree in foreign service from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Before entering law school, she worked at the Council of Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She began law school at William & Mary Law School, then transferred to Yale Law School where she earned her Juris Doctor.
Ebinger worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut and for the Central Intelligence Agency’s Office of General Counsel. She worked at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa, and later clerked at the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division in the Northern District of Iowa, primarily focusing on white-collar crime. After two years there, she was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Iowa in the appellate unit for a year. She spent four years as a State District Judge in Iowa’s Judicial Election District.
President Barack Obama nominated Ebinger to serve on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. She was confirmed by a vote of 83-0 by the Senate and received her commission in February 2016.
She is married to Lou Ebinger.
In the News…
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger issued an order that prevents state officials from banning a group of Des Moines Black Liberation Movement protesters from entering the Iowa Capitol grounds. In her order, she said that a ban requested by state legislative leaders and enforced by the Iowa State Patrol violates the constitutional rights of the protesters.
“The court finds the bans likely burden more speech than is necessary to achieve the significant state interests of preventing violence and ensuring public safety,” she wrote in issuing an injunction on preventing enforcement of the ban while the case continues.
A group of demonstrators supporting the Black Lives Matter movement were arrested after a scuffle broke out between police and the demonstrators this summer. Afterward, troopers told them that legislative leaders had ordered them banned from the grounds and if they returned to the state property around the building, they would be arrested for trespassing. Some were banned for six months and others for a year.
The lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Iowa seeks to permanently invalidate the bans based on fundamental constitutional rights of free speech and First Amendment protections. The suit also seeks monetary damages.
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Judge Ebinger today? You can let her know at:
The Honorable Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger
Southern Iowa U.S. District Court
123 East Walnut Street
Des Moines, IA 50309
