The news that members of the Iowa House of Representatives are pursuing impeachment of Iowa’s four remaining Supreme Court justices is stunning. That Leader Paulson said he would not stand in the way of the effort is breathtaking.
These people need some basic civics lessons. What the Supreme Court decided in April 2009 regarding same sex marriage was that the law prohibiting same sex marriage violated the Iowa constitution. The fact that a majority of Iowa voters voted against the three justices who were scheduled for retention in this year’s election shows how widespread is the misunderstanding of basic constitutional democracy, and it reflects badly on the whole state that so few of us understand that the court’s job is to interpret and preserve the constitution, especially when, in the judgment of the court, the other branches of government stray off course as the legislature and governor had done. That is the court’s responsibility, its job, its reason for being.
It seems impossible that we have elected law makers who are so ignorant of the constitution. But we can hope that it may be one of those situations in which David Letterman might say “No, Wait. They’re not that ignorant. They’re just exploiting the fact that most Iowa voters are that ignorant.”
