Iowa's Counterfeit "Marriage" Judges Get the Boot

In the midst of all the election news there is a very important story. Tonight, Iowa voters struck an important blow for self-government and against activist judges: all three of Iowa's Supreme Court Justices who were up for retention lost. How unheard of is this? Last week the Des Moines Register quoted a Vanderbilt University law professor who said

“It is virtually unheard of for a judge to lose a retention race.”

From tonight's Des Moines Register:

"Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and her two colleagues are on pace to lose their seats tonight in the wake of last year’s unanimous decision to legalize same-sex marriage.

Ternus has 46 percent support, with 1,362 of 1,774 statewide precincts reporting. Justice David Baker has 47 percent, and Justice Michael Streit has 46 percent.

Their removal would mark the first time any Iowa Supreme Court justice has not been retained, since the merit selection and retention system was adopted in 1962."

They lost because they had inflicted counterfeit "marriage" on the citizens of Iowa. We had blogged about this back on September 19:

Civics Lesson Iowa: Counterfeit "Marriage" Judges on Ballot"

In the post we quoted Matthew Franck:

"When judges create a right to same-sex marriage out of whole cloth, that’s more than 'overstepping.' That’s a direct assault on the constitutional order, and the effort to defeat the offending Iowa jurists in this year’s retention elections is understood by its advocates to be an attempt to restore something severely damaged by the judges... As for the 'peril of subjecting judges to voters’ whims,' how about the peril of subjecting voters to judges’ whims?"

As Iowa for Freedom campaign manager Chuck Laudner said:

“It is the citizens’ right to vote their conscience...Election Day is their turn to be the judge.”

God bless the good people of Iowa!

UPDATE: the great Ed Whelan comments on the Iowa story, and has more about elections involving the judiciary.