Judicial Retention Election - Our Thoughts
We are posting this message on our website blog because we believe that the well-financed campaign urging voters to vote not to retain the three Iowa Supreme Court justices whose names appear on the ballot is misleading Iowans about the role of the Iowa Supreme Court in deciding important issues that affect our lives. Current polls suggest that the vote will be very close and is being strongly influenced by the “vote no” campaign. Judges do not campaign, so the advertising has been very one-sided.
The Iowa Supreme Court has a long and honorable tradition of protecting the constitutional rights of all Iowans. Those decisions have often been controversial, including its very first ruling—in 1839—that slavery could not exist in Iowa, and its 1868 decision that Iowa schools could not be racially segregated. The U.S. Supreme Court did not reach that conclusion until 1954. The Iowa Supreme Court’s tradition of standing at the forefront of protecting citizen’s rights is thoroughly discussed in greater depth in an article by Iowa journalist Michael Gartner and is available on our website at http://www.iowa-personal-injury-law.com/library/101029_Article___Justice_is_Blind_by_Michael_Gartner.PDF.
As Gartner notes, the Iowa Supreme Court has issued 10,014 decisions in its 171 year history. Among them are rulings that protect our most fundamental rights, including our rights to raise our children, earn a living, own property, and live free of significant governmental intrusion in our lives. However, the current campaign to remove Iowa’s justices is based on only one ruling—also highly controversial—that a 1988 amendment to Iowa’s marriage statute that prohibited marriage unless it was between a male and a female, violated the State Constitution’s requirement that all Iowans receive equal protection under the law.
You may or may not agree with this ruling. Odds are you have not read it in its entirety, since it is 69 pages long. It also is posted on our website at http://www.iowa-personal-injury-law.com/library/101029_Varnum_v._Brien.PDF, since it serves as a good example of the process by which a court struggles with, analyzes and resolves difficult decisions about individual rights.
We are not writing to tell you how we believe you should vote—that is one of the rights that the Iowa Supreme Court has always assured is yours and yours alone. But we would urge you to evaluate the Iowa Supreme Court justices based on your assessment of their overall performance, and not on the unpopularity of a single ruling. We also urge you to vote, and to complete your ballot concerning judicial retention this year more than any other.
The Iowa Supreme Court website—which thankfully is NOT a political website—includes background information for all three of the judges whose names are on the ballot. While it is only one source of information, an Iowa lawyers’ poll that routinely is held before elections gave the three justices average ratings of approximately 4.3 out of 5 (good to excellent) on 10 criterion traditionally regarded as indicators of judicial performance (including knowledge and application of law, reasoning, demeanor, and equal treatment of parties). The lawyers also voted for retention at the following percentages: Marsha Ternus – 72%; David Baker – 82.8%; and Michael Streit – 83.7%. The 3,284 lawyers who voted come from all political, social and religious backgrounds. Their strong vote for retention is based on overall performance and not the popularity of one decision.
The full poll and other background concerning the Iowa Supreme Court justices is available at the Iowa State Bar Association website, http://iowabar.org/.
We hope this information is helpful to you in making your decision on Tuesday. Thanks for the taking the time to consider it.
