One Iowa in the News: Panelists warn of impending battle for independent judiciary

from The Iowa Independent.

A coordinated effort is underway to dismantle judicial merit selection processes across the country, the head of the Iowa ACLU says, threatening the independence of the judicial branch in the Hawkeye State and beyond.

Ben Stone, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, said that would leave people accused of crimes “in a horrid position.”

“They want people that are terrified of public opinion, because they know they can manipulate public opinion to get what they want,” Stone said.

Social conservative groups including the Iowa Family Policy Center (now known as The Family Leader), the National Organization for Marriage, the American Family Association and Iowa for Freedom launched a major campaign last year to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices that participated in a unanimous decision that found the state’s legislative ban on same-sex marriage to be a violation of the Iowa Constitution’s equal protection clause.

They were successful in doing so, and expectations are the remaining four justices that supported the unanimous decision in Varnum v. Brien will also face difficult retention votes in 2012 and 2016.

Meredith Palmer of Lambda Legal said that’s a serious threat to minority rights. Lambda Legal is the nation’s oldest and largest legal organization working for the rights of lesbians, gay men and people with HIV/AIDS. The group filed the Varnum lawsuit.

“As history has proven, it’s been the courts that have really upheld constitutional protections before the majority thought that was what America is all about,” Palmer said.

Connie Ryan Terrell, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, said the courts don’t make decisions based on popular will. Groups working against Iowa’s judicial system know that, she said, but they turn that around with a message that judges are ignoring the will of the people.

“They don’t fight fair. They don’t fight by our rules,” Terrell said. “They don’t fight by constitutional or legal rules. Churches that are of the religious right ilk, they do promote candidates in their churches. But it does no good to call them on it.”

...The comments were made at a series of panels held as part of an event called Defending Iowa’s Courts, which took place last week in Des Moines. About a dozen groups sponsored the event, including Lambda Legal, Justice not Politics, Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, One Iowa and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa.

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