Guilty! Iowa judges and contempt for the constitution. Are you listening, Iowa voters?

Remember those Iowa Supreme Court monarchs, I mean judges, who decided their eminent will transcends such trivialities as votes, democracy, checks and balances, and deriving power from the consent of the governed? Well, the story doesn’t end there, because three of those judges now need the same populace that they steamrolled to approve their reappointment.

Here’s what happened. Iowa did not have gay marriage. Now it does, because of mutant, bastardized legislation, conceived without a single democratic vote or any input from the people or the people’s elected representatives. This is policy by arrogant decree of imperious, black-robed renegades with blatant contempt for our democratic system.

Usually judges have little difficulty retaining their posts, but this year is different owing to the high court – by unanimous consent – striking down the state Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), on the basis that it violated the state’s guarantees of equal protection.

Conservatives accused the high court of overstepping its bounds and engaging in judicial activism by appealing to an “evolving standard” of interpreting the state constitution.

“The April 3, 2009, opinion made it extremely clear that this court became activist in nature. We say we don’t want the courts politicized but that’s exactly what they did,” said conservative activist and former GOP candidate for governor Bob Vander Plaats in an interview broadcast Sunday on KCCI-TV.

[…]

Vander Plaats argued that the Iowa Supreme Court violated the law in three large ways: first invalidating Iowan principles by striking down its own DOMA, second usurping the role of legislature by enacting from the bench a new law legalizing same-sex “marriage,” and thirdly, executing the law demanding its enforcement, which is a function of the executive branch, by ordering all 99 counties to implement the decision.

“We need to vote them off the bench to send a message across Iowa that we, the people, still have the power,” said Vander Plaats. “Not only will it send a message here in Iowa, but it will send a message in California, in Arizona and across the country that the courts have really taken on too much power.

Somehow I’m reminded of a picture I saw recently, depicting the constitution as a roll of toilet paper. Obviously its most common use at the Iowa Supreme Court – an outrage that voters now have a chance to rectify.