Gavel Grab

The Iowa Family Policy Center, a group that worked in 2010 for the ouster of three Iowa Supreme Court justices, says it likely will push to remove Justice David Wiggins in a retention (up-or-down) election this year.

Justice Wiggins was part of a unanimous ruling in 2009 that permitted same-sex marriages. Three of his fellow justices who faced retention elections in 2010 were removed by voters incensed over the controversial ruling, and responding to a campaign funded heavily by out-of-state interest groups.

Chuck Hurley, vice president of the Iowa Family Policy Center, told KCCI Des Moines that his group plans to educate the public this fall, ahead of the Supreme Court retention vote.

“They legislated and executed from the bench and they have no business doing that. Eighty percent of Americans think that judges have gotten too big for their britches,” Hurley said on Monday.

For a legal scholar’s perspective on the impact on fair and impartial courts of the historic judicial ouster vote in Iowa two years ago, see Gavel Grab.

Tags: Iowa