"Arrogance Costly for Iowa Judges"

The great Dr. Thomas Sowell discusses one of the most hopeful signs of the recent election. --the people's reasserting our right, and duty, to self-government:

"Results of the recent elections showed that growing numbers of Americans are fed up with 'public servants' who act as if they are public masters. This went beyond the usual objections to particular policies. It was the fact that policies were crammed down our throats, whether we liked them or not...

Whether these policies were good, bad or indifferent, the way they were imposed represented a more fundamental threat to the very principles of a self-governing people established by the U.S. Constitution....

The voters struck back, as they had to, if we are to keep the freedoms that define this country. The Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution, by getting rid of those who circumvent it or disregard it.

The same thing applies to judges. The runaway arrogance that politicians get when they have huge majorities in Congress is a more or less common arrogance among federal judges with lifetime tenure or state judges who are seldom defeated in elections to confirm their appointments to the bench.

It was a surprise to many — and a shock to media liberals — when three judges on Iowa’s Supreme Court were voted off that court in the same recent elections in which a lot of politicians also were sent packing.

These judges had taken it upon themselves to rule that the voters of Iowa did not have the right to block attempts to change the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples. Here again, the particular issue — so-called “gay marriage” — was not as fundamental as the question of depriving the voting public of their right to decide what kinds of laws they want to live under...

Media liberals, who like what liberal judges do, spring to their defense. The media spin is that judges were voted off the bench because of 'unpopular' decisions and that this threatens judicial 'independence.”'

Since this was the first time that a justice of the Iowa Supreme Court was voted off the bench in nearly half a century, it is very doubtful that there was never an “unpopular” court decision in all that time. (Good point!) The media spin about “unpopular” decisions sidesteps the far more important question of whether the judges usurped powers that were never given to them by the Constitution. "