Three Iowa Supreme Court justices who upheld marriage equality in last year’s landmark ruling are now under threat.
Bob Vander Plaats, fresh off a failed attempt to secure the Republican gubernatorial nomination, recently spoke out against retaining the three judges this November. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, widely believed to be campaigning for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, also expressed support for ousting Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices Michael Streit and David Baker.
The Editorial Board strongly rejects this assault on the Supreme Court. The recall of judges due to disagreement on a single judicial opinion endangers our liberal democratic system and the Constitutional rights it guarantees. The blinkered views of Vander Plaats, Pawlenty, and their ideological brethren fly in the face of one of the core purposes of the judiciary: protecting minority rights against the will of an oppressive majority.
Our country’s Founding Fathers were well aware of the tyrannical power of majorities. Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist No. 9, wrote of factions arising and fragmenting the union; while James Madison’s response is often read with an eye toward political parties, it’s also relevant when discussing unsavory majorities.
“When a majority is included in a faction,” Madison wrote, “the form of popular Government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.”
This was an argument against direct democracy, and Madison proposed that a majority must thus be limited in its ability to railroad the political system. While his solution was the use of representative democracy, it isn’t the sole remedy — particularly in a time of mass referenda on gay marriage and civil benefits.
The battle over retention underscores the importance of the Bill of Rights — both on the national and state levels — and an independent judiciary that upholds those sacrosanct rights. The Iowa Bill of Rights guarantees the rights of all Iowans, regardless of whether they are members of the majority. And the Iowa Supreme Court has the duty to uphold those constitutional rights.
The court exercised that duty in Varnum v. Brien, which overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. To recall judges based on that ruling needlessly politicizes the judicial branch and undermines judiciary independence.
In addition, further politicization of the courts could needlessly inject money into the judiciary process, concomitantly eroding the merit system.
“In this moment, that’s the issue — minority rights,” Iowans for Fair and Impartial Courts spokesman Norbert Kaut told the Editorial Board. “But what prompted us to think about forming this organization was seeing, in other states, how the plaintiff’s bar and corporate interests would contribute a lot of money to a judicial campaign.”
Vander Plaats may disagree with the court’s ruling on same-sex marriage for personal, religious, and political reasons. But the court did not overstep its judicial role, and it did not trample on his Constitutional rights; the current justices shouldn’t be ousted for an imagined slight.
In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, “The law sometimes demands unpopular outcomes, and a judge who is forced to weigh what is popular rather than focusing solely on what the law demands has lost some independence and impartiality.”
Justices should be retained based on their ability to uphold the law and defend the Constitution, not on their ability to kowtow to outside opinion.