Support for Marriage Equality Bodes Well for Iowa Justices Facing Retention Vote

This year, as in 2010, three Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled for marriage equality in 2009 face retention votes Election Day -- but the political landscape has changed vastly since then.

In 2009, the unanimous decision made Iowa just the third state in the nation to offer legal marriage rights to same-sex couples -- and the following year, outraged conservatives voted to remove the three justices who were up for retention. But now, thanks to last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling, same-sex couples have access to legal marriage in all 50 states. And public opposition to marriage equality has waned; indeed, polls generally show majority support for equal marriage rights.

Nonetheless, Iowa right-wing activists, especially Family Leader president and CEO Bob Vander Plaats, are still urging voters to remove pro-marriage equality justices from the state's high court. "They intentionally ignored their constitutional oath and the separation of powers to un-define this sacred institution and foist homosexual marriage upon our state," Vander Plaats wrote of Chief Justice Mark Cady and Justices Daryl Hecht and Brent Appel in an op-ed published October 21 in The Des Moines Register. Vander Plaats also objected to a court deicision allowing clinics to administer an abortion-inducing drug without a doctor present.

In Iowa, Supreme Court justices as well as judges on other state courts are appointed by the governor and subject to retention votes every few years. In 2010, voters removed Chief Justice Marsha K. Ternus and Justices Michael J. Streit and David L. Baker from office. Another justice involved in the marriage equality decision, David Wiggins, was up for a retention vote in 2012, and a majority of Iowans voted that he should remain on the high court.

Justices up for retention have generally declined to campaign, believing the court should stay above politics, even as activists campaign against them. None of the three who are subject to votes this year have campaigned, and Cady released a statement saying, "I believe campaigns for judicial office only open the door of a court system to the influence of politics and money. This door must never swing open."

The justices who were removed in 2010 say they don't regret not campaigning to keep their posts. "Good jurists approach the law from a neutral place," Ternus told the Register recently. "When you start treating judges as politicians, it attracts a different kind of applicant to the bench. It's a downward spiral."

Ternus, Streit, and Baker told the paper they have gotten on with their lives and careers just fine since being removed from the court. And some observers say that, given the changed political climate, the justices up for retention this year are likely to retain their positions.

"I think obviously the nation has become more comfortable with the concept" of same-sex marriage, Baker told the Associated Press. "It certainly has been made clear, from a constitutional basis, ours is the correct decision."