Iowa Judges Defeated After Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage - NYTimes.com

NO Activist Judges

Judicial deference to the popular will is a tricky issue.  Judicial activism has been a right wing rallying  cry since the John Birch Society began its impeach Earl Warren campaign.

I practiced in New Jersey for thirty years. No judicial elections care - and an independent judiciary thrived.  But the state Supreme Court's  decisions on affordable housing, equality of suburban and urban school funding, and the death penalty provoked much resentment.  But the judges were insulated from angry conservative legislators by gubernatorial adherence to the principal that competence and integrity were the only issues to be considered when judges came up for tenure after seven years.  That principle was breached this summer by Gov. Christopher Christie who refused to nominate for tenure a centrist justice of the Supreme Court.  Widespread denunciation of the Governor by the bar followed.  But he hasn't budged.  Nor has the Legislature which refuses to act on his nominee - Anne Patterson.

The political influence that the New Jersey bar fears hit home today with the defeat of three judges of the Iowa Supreme Court  who had voted in favor of gay marriage.  The story is HERE