Litigation

First TV Ad Launched in IA Ouster Drive

By Peter Hardin

A group seeking to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices in nationally watched retention elections this fall has launched its first TV ad.

The group, Iowa for Freedom, is upset about the high court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage in Iowa. The ad is intended “to inform the voters of Iowa that you have a supreme court that usurped the will of the people,” said Bob Vander Plaats, a former GOP candidate for governor and current head of Iowa for Freedom. He was quoted in a KCCI TV report.

The advertisement slams the justices as “liberal and out of control.” According to an Iowa Independent article, it says Iowa for Freedom is “a project of AFA Action” and “the National Organization for Marriage.” AFA Action is the political arm of the American Family Association (see Gavel Grab), a national conservative group, and National Organization for Marriage is based in New Jersey and is “anti-gay,” the article said.

The latter group has pumped more than $235,000 into the TV ad campaign, according to disclosure reports filed today and reported by a subsequent Iowa Independent article.

Iowa district Judge Robert Hanson, who wrote the original opinion upholding the constitutionality of same-sex marriage in Iowa, said the justices targeted in the ad “did exactly what they were required to do, mainly to assess the constitutionality of a particular statute.” He also maintained that Vander Plaats is advocating an abuse of the retention election process.

A Des Moines Register editorial, meanwhile, suggested that a lot more than three justices are under attack, that Iowa’s judicial system is now drawing mistaken fire:

“The Vander Plaats campaign is based on a complete misunderstanding of the role of the courts: Judge are constitutionally authorized – indeed it is their duty – to say when they believe a law violates the fundamental principles articulated by the authors of the Iowa Constitution.”

The editorial discussed retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s recent visit to the state and her campaigning to end partisan judicial elections, premised on concern about the threat to judicial independence posed by big spending in these contests. The editorial concluded:

“O’Connor deserves praise for devoting her time and energy to a campaign against partisan judicial elections. Iowans should take her advice and protect our model judicial-selection process from those who would wreck it one retention election at a time.”

In a Slate article, Dahlia Lithwick recapped recent events surrounding the Iowa controversy and also discussed Justice O’Connor’s remarks:

“What scares O’Connor is that the millions of special interest dollars pouring into these judicial election campaigns will start to influence judges. She also worries that millions of dollars of special interest money pouring into judicial races tells the public exactly what Vander Plaats is trying desperately to prove in Iowa: It’s not just justice that can be bought and sold to the highest bidder, it’s the justices themselves.”

Both the editorial and Slate article cited data on soaring spending in judicial elections compiled by Justice at Stake and partner groups in the recent report, ?The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2000-2009: Decade of Change.” Learn more about it from Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 14, 2010 (boomark / email).