Jason Hancock of The Iowa Independent reports that a former adviser to Bob Vander Plaats believes that the failed gubernatorial candidate has become obsessed and is now endangering Iowa's judicial system:
Bob Vander Plaats' continued push to remove the remaining four justices on the Iowa Supreme Court over the 2009 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage is endangering the judicial system and displaying that the influential conservative is “obsessed with the gay-marriage issue,” said Dan Moore, a Sioux City attorney and a former adviser on three of Vander Plaats’ campaigns, in a column published Sunday in The Des Moines Register.
Fueled by almost $1 million in spending by out-of-state anti-gay organizations, Vander Plaats led the successful campaign to oust three Supreme Court justices up for retention vote. Now, as CEO of the Christian political organization The Family Leader, Vander Plaats has called for the remaining four justices to resign. If they do not, he will support efforts by Republican lawmakers to impeach them.
Moore compared the same-sex marriage decision to another legal opinion rendered by the court in 1839 that declared slavery illegal in Iowa. Those justices were not impeached, Moore said, and threatening judges with impeachment for doing their job sets a dangerous precedent.
From The Register:
Justice should not be based upon which way the political winds may be blowing.
Bob Vander Plaats, who is highly regarded by many conservatives in Iowa, is quite simply wrong to encourage Iowans to support the resignation or impeachment of the remaining four justices of the Iowa Supreme Court. He is grasping at political relevance using daily sound bites of misinformation to intentionally mislead.
I hope all Iowans step back and objectively analyze the damage to the Iowa judicial branch that Bob has already caused. The talk and rhetoric of resignation and impeachment should die.
This is the second time in as many weeks that Vander Plaats has faced criticism for his attacks on the judiciary from his hometown. The conservative editorial board of the Sioux City Journal concluded that Vander Plaats had “jumped the shark” for his repeated calls for judicial resignation.
