Newt Gingrich Joins Tim Pawlenty In Backing Plan To Oust Judges
BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF
PUBLISHED: AUGUST 14, 2010
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has joined Minnesota
Governor Tim Pawlenty in backing gay marriage foes'
campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court judges off
the bench, the Iowa Independent reported.
A low-lying campaign to remove the judges has been
underway since the court's April 2009 unanimous ruling
that brought gay marriage to the Midwest. But the effort has
grown wings since former gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander
Plaats, a Republican, announced he'll work against the judge's
retention. Voters will decide in November whether to keep Chief
Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit.
The remaining judges are not on the ballot this year.
Vander Plaats said a federal judge's ruling that declared California's
gay marriage ban unconstitutional motivated him to act.
“If the judges can do this to marriage, every one of your freedoms
is up for grabs,” he said in announcing his plans.
“Iowans are unique in that they have the ability to send a very clear
and simple message that the court's behavior is unacceptable by just
voting 'no' on the three judges who are up for reappointment,”
Gingrich said in an interview with WHO-AM. “If a majority of Iowans
vote 'no,' that will send a signal to the whole county that there is a
citizens revolt under way.”
“We're going to have to fundamentally revisit how we deal with
judges because the judicial branch has grown much too powerful
and much too dictatorial and now regularly over reaches in telling
us how to live,” he added.
Pawlenty expressed a similar sentiment in an interview Wednesday
with The Associated Press. He said the does not like judges “inserting
their personal views to change” the definition of marriage and added
that he was OK with the campaign to oust the judges.
control the remains of a loved one. “I oppose efforts to treat domestic relationships as the equivalent of traditional marriage,” he said in
opposing the bill.
Reacting to the California ruling last week, Gingrich renewed a call for
“Judge Walker's ruling overturning Prop 8 is an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution and for the majority of people of the United States who believe marriage is the union of husband and wife,” Gingrich wrote on his website.
“Congress now has the responsibility to act immediately to reaffirm marriage
as a union of one man and one woman as our national policy.”
Both men are considered potential Republican 2012 presidential candidates.
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