I'm not sure that most of us appreciate just what a disaster the recent election was. Those right-wing teabaggers kept our attention focused on the economy, but let's not forget that these are also the same "culture war" social conservatives we've been battling for years.
Sure, economically it's insane to cut government spending during a recession, especially such a deep one as this. And it's even more insane to turn control over to the same people who got us into this mess in the first place, people who espouse the exact same rhetoric they did during the Bush years, people who haven't changed their opinions in the slightest, despite the disastrous results from them then.
And sure, if we Americans were dumb enough to vote them back in power on economic grounds, their loony social views might not have made much difference. Nonetheless, knowing that Americans were angry about the economy - and were unwilling to place the blame on themselves, for letting the GOP do this to us in the first place - most GOP politicians were careful to stick to economic issues (often refusing to answer questions about anything else).
But did you see what else happened on Tuesday?
In 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court voted unanimously that banning gay couples from getting married was unconstitutional.
“We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” Justice Mark S. Cady wrote for the seven-member court, adding later, “We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law.”
On Tuesday, the first three members of the court were scheduled for retention votes, normally an automatic matter, and all three were defeated.
The close vote concluded an unusually aggressive ouster campaign in the typically sleepy state judicial retention elections that pitted concerns about judicial overreaching against concerns about judicial independence. After years of grumbling about “robed masters,” conservatives demonstrated their ability to target and remove judges who issue opinions they disagree with.
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.
Financed largely by out-of-state organizations opposed to gay marriage, those pushing against the judges were successful in turning the vote into a referendum on the divisive issue.
...
The defeat was a bitter disappointment to much of the legal community here, which rallied behind the three justices, arguing that judicial standards require judges to follow their interpretation of the law and not their reading of public opinion. They had urged voters to consider issues like competence and temperament rather than a single issue when casting ballots.
The three justices — Marsha K. Ternus, the chief justice; Michael J. Streit; and David L. Baker — did not raise money to campaign and only toward the end of the election did they make public appearances to defend themselves.
“We wish to thank all of the Iowans who voted to retain us for another term,” the judges said in a statement. “Your support shows that many Iowans value fair and impartial courts. We also want to acknowledge and thank all the Iowans, from across the political spectrum and from different walks of life, who worked tirelessly over the past few months to defend Iowa’s high-caliber court system against an unprecedented attack by out-of-state special interest groups.
“Finally, we hope Iowans will continue to support Iowa’s merit selection system for appointing judges. This system helps ensure that judges base their decisions on the law and the Constitution and nothing else. Ultimately, however, the preservation of our state’s fair and impartial courts will require more than the integrity and fortitude of individual judges, it will require the steadfast support of the people.”
Though several groups formed to support their retention, they were significantly outspent by the organizations that bankrolled the ouster effort, including the National Organization for Marriage and the American Family Association.
“We’re concerned about the precedent this has set tonight and what it means for the influence of money and politics on the judicial system,” said Dan Moore, co-chair of Fair Courts for Us, which supported the judges.
To my mind, there are several things that should bother us about this. The first is that judges aren't supposed to be swayed by political concerns. They're supposed to interpret the law, regardless as to whether or not it's politically popular.
From a follow-up article:
From its first decision in 1839, the Iowa Supreme Court demonstrated a willingness to push ahead of public opinion on matters of minority rights, ruling against slavery, school segregation and discrimination decades before the national mood shifted toward racial equality.
I daresay none of those decisions were popular in the state at the time, but don't we all recognize that they were correct now? When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws in 1967, allowing people of different races to marry, most Americans opposed the decision. That's why we have Supreme Courts, to defend the law. If these unconstitutional laws hadn't been politically popular, they wouldn't have existed in the first place.
Second, the U.S. Supreme Court, overturning precedent just this year, has unleashed a flood of anonymous, corporate money into our political system. We saw what a flood of out-of-state money accomplished in Iowa. What will happen now that corporations can spend freely - and anonymously - to defeat any judge who doesn't rule the way they want? It's not as though corporations had too little power even before this, but the election results in Iowa are going to give them all ideas, don't you think?
After all, very few people have the slightest idea how to vote in these judicial retention elections, so it wouldn't take much money to sway the voting any way you wanted. In these kinds of votes, most people don't know and don't care, so it's the people who do care that have the most influence. With anonymous money funding a campaign, it should be a piece of cake to change the judicial system any way they want.
And finally, what does this say about the Republicans who've just taken control of the United States House of Representatives? Yes, we know they'll be pushing tax cuts for the rich, to the enormous expansion of the federal deficit. And no, they won't likely cut spending significantly, not because it's crazy to do that in a recession (which it is), but because it will step on too many toes. However, we can be sure that they cut spending they disagree with - money for scientific research, for example, puny as it is. With not a single Republican senate candidate accepting the scientific consensus on global warming, it's pretty clear that the GOP is solidly anti-science these days.
And ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which didn't even pass the Senate before the election, will probably be completely impossible now. And any effective action on climate change, or even weaning ourselves from foreign oil, will be completely out of the questions. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who famously apologized to BP, would be in line for the chairmanship of the House energy and commerce committee if it weren't for party term limits, but whoever gets the job will be just as bad.
Darrell Issa, a fanatic anti-Obama Republican, will take over the House oversight and government reform committee and is already planning to tie up the president with a never-ending witch hunt. And Paul Ryan, likely chair of the budget committee, has been pushing to partially privatize Social Security and turn Medicare into a voucher system.
Every potential committee chair is like this. It's just one lunatic after another. I won't claim that economic matters will be the least of our problems, since I do expect the GOP to actively try to keep the economy in the dumps through 2012, just to keep the pressure on Barack Obama. But there's going to be a lot more going on in the meantime, including relentless attacks on science, on the separation of church and state, on health care reform, and on public education. It's not looking good, not at all.
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