Wednesday, November 3, 2010

At Last: Activist Judges Given the Boot by the People!

In Iowa, several activist judges presumed to impose their morality on the entire state of Iowa by legislating from the bench in favor of same-sex "marriage." But now, voters of Iowa have removed them from the bench.

John McCormack of The Weekly Standard quotes a story from the New York Times:

DES MOINES — In a rebuke of the state supreme court with implications for judicial elections across the country, voters here removed three justices who participated in a ruling last year that made the state the first in the Midwest to permit same-sex marriage. ...

Each of the three judges received about 45 percent support with 91 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press, making Tuesday the first time members of Iowa’s high court had been rejected by voters. Under the system used here, judges face no opponents and simply need to gain more yes votes than no votes to win another eight-year term.

What an encouraging turn of events! So maybe democracy is not dead everywhere in the Western world. McCormack quotes Gary Bauer, who was involved in the campaign to make this happen as follows:
“Time and time again, the American people have rejected attempts to redefine the meaning of marriage. But liberal judges insist on pushing this radical agenda on us. Last night the voters of Iowa pushed back and rejected the justices. Activist judges everywhere have been put on notice,” said Gary Bauer, chairman of Campaign for Working Families.

“Judges do not have the right to legislate from the bench. Nor are they the supreme authority of the land. The voters of Iowa made that clear last night. Campaign for Working Families was proud to join the National Organization for Marriage, the American Family Association and Iowa for Freedom in an extensive media campaign exposing the radical record of these robed political activists. I am proud that Iowa voters stood up and said ‘Enough!’”
Well said. Well done, citizens of Iowa. This is a trend I hope we see spread everywhere.

2 comments:

Chris Marlink said...

Craig, this is great news for Iowa, for the limited role of the judiciary, and for marriage.

Not sure if you were aware of it or not, but FRC Action, National Organization for Marriage, and others were very active on the ground prior to the election with a bus tour (www.judgebus.com) highlighting judicial activism and encouraging a "no retention" vote. Predictably, there was some resistance.

It's a major victory all around. Thanks for posting this.

Chris Marlink
frcblog.com
thecloakroomblog.com

penny farthing said...

This is awesome! It's important that people realize how precious the right to vote out judges is - Soros is trying to get ballot propositions going that would make judges appointed by governors, in addition to his SOS initiative to get progressive Secretaries of State to oversee elections. Of course, given the Republican sweep of governors races he may want to reconsider.