Legislating From The Bench or Doing Their Job

Here in Iowa, our election day was not only for representatives, senators and a governor. In fact, a huge issue getting a lot of the play was on the retention or rejection of 3 Iowa Supreme Court justices. After all was said and done, Marsha K. Ternus, the chief justice; Michael J. Streit; and David L. Baker — received about 45 percent of the vote, making this the first time members of the state’s high court had been rejected by voters.

“I think it will send a message across the country that the power resides with the people,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor who led the campaign. “It’s we the people, not we the courts.”

“What is so disturbing about this is that it really might cause judges in the future to be less willing to protect minorities out of fear that they might be voted out of office,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Irvine, School of Law. “Something like this really does chill other judges.”

A massive portion of the campaign to oust the judges was funded by out of state groups, helping to support the efforts led by Vander Plaats, and heralded by Representative Steve King.

A lot of the arguments put forth by pundits and regular citizens alike was that the ouster was the result of Iowans being displeased with the state Supreme Court legislating from the bench. Now I may be a conservative, but this is one area where I break ranks with our so-called standard bearers.

For one, I personally think the idea of gay marriage is a non-issue and therefor irrelevant in regards to government oversight, save the license issuing process that heterosexual couples go through. Secondly, I personally believe the process behind letting citizens decide to stop homosexuals from being allowed to marry or not is ludicrous. Since the state Supreme Court said the legislation was essentially flawed and struck down as unconstitutional, gay marriage opponents and politicians have taken to their soapboxes to proclaim the injustice of an opinion differing from theirs. Boo-friggin-hoo!

I believe when allowing citizens to vote on the rights of other people's lives you have to look at a couple things. One- does there allowance to participate in some activity truly harm you? Two- Is the vote on an amendment to allow a freedom or restrict a freedom.

Personally, I know gay people, and have some people related to me who have chosen (or are naturally?) the homosexual lifestyle. Am I for gay activities? Not really. I have always and will always prefer women for romantic relations. But in regards to homosexuality I don't have to participate in, condone, or suffer from their lifestyle, or choose to associate myself with anyone who does. Whether or not two gay people decide to get married will ultimately never affect me personally, and I highly doubt it will affect any of the other straight people living around here.

Conservatives are always bitching about how they want the government to stay out of their personal lives and let them live and operate freely as they see fit. But then all of a sudden, hoards of queers appear on the horizon, in full war paint ready to charge on in and ruin their idea of civilization, and now they want to use our system of governance to prohibit the activities of individuals.

Look I get the God-fearing church crowd being dismayed at homosexual activities and lifestyle, I really do. Say what you want, let your heart be filled with all that hate you wish to hold, but remember a couple teachings from the Good Book. Do not judge, for that is the role of God. Hate the sin, love the sinner. Pull the plank out of your own eye before removing the speck from your brother's.

In other words, you aren't perfect, so who the hell are you to tell other people how wrong they are. Fix up your own house and let others fix their own house as they see fit. Again, you don't have to hang out with homosexuals or people who accept homosexuals as friends for that matter. You don't have to engage in homosexual behavior or gay marriage. Your church does not have to recognize anything related to homosexuals. In the same moment, keep your government out of it as well.

Quit pissing and moaning about how the government is trying to legislate your activities, and then turn around and do the same thing to someone you disagree with. That only makes you a hypocrite. And while everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinions, the rest of those around you are equally entitled to disagree with you and tell you to stuff it where the sun don't shine.

So, unlike many of my conservative friends, I voted to retain the three judges. I voted for the losing side. That doesn't make me wrong, just makes me in the minority at the polls. The judges did NOT legislate from the bench, contrary to popular opinion, but merely did their job in not restricting the freedoms of citizens under their jurisdiction.

No Monopoly On Adultery

It used to be a lot simpler for the conservatives who lived moral values to see the Republican party as an ally. It was always the Democratic members of the polity that were hedonistic and immoral. Afterall, you had JFK, known to be a bit of a playboy, albeit strictly rumors, not to mention another President, Bill Clinton who was caught and admitted extramarital sexually-related activities. Throw in former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, and a few others.

Nowadays, we have the Distinguished Bathroom Toe-tapper from Idaho, Larry Craig, and that other forgotten fellow from Florida who messed with interns....to not only disgrace their families with extramarital affairs, but call into question their participation in the very sexual orientated ways they claimed to be an abomination.

Now in the last two weeks, we have two new philanderers: Senator Ensign from Nevada and Governor Sanford from South Carolina. Both were looking to be the ones we shouldered the hope of the GOP on. Well, so much for those ideas.

Maybe I'm a bit biased here, but when certain democrats were getting caught with their proverbial pants down, it only served to bolster the conservative argument of family values and the like, and we could always say, "Look! Look at those guys over there. You dont see that kind of stuff happening with OUR guys!"

And while these new revelations of conservative "christian" men falling prey to the same temptation in life would normally just cancel it out and make things even, it seems to me to be an even bigger blow, as the hypocrisy of it all makes a much bigger splash on the Republican side of the aisle, at least with the public perception of such transgressions. Who knows, maybe it's just me that this bugs.

A Democrat Governor that made me smile

While an independent, most who know me know I lean to the right and am more apt to vote republican than democrat, depending on the candidates in question. Our last gubernatorial election in Iowa, I voted for the republican candidate, but somehow the democrat who ran the voter/elections record keeping office somehow took me off the voter registration between 2004 and 2006. Nothing about me changed except maybe my weight and my income. My address and place of employment were all the same. Now in 2004, I voted for our current President. Maybe this irritated Mr. Mauro, who knows? I showed up with my voter ID card, my driver's license, 3 credit cards, an insurance card, and my state ID for security officers. But, somehow in 2 years I lost my ability to vote. My wife was on their list, but not me. Inevitably my little "consolation voting form" didn't count because they had no record of me. But I got a NEW voter ID card with all the same information. So hopefully in November I'l be able to vote. Luckily I couldn't really contest my vote not counting, since my guy lost by a landslide, rather than say, by my vote alone.
So anyways, we have a tax and spend Democrat governor, Chet Culver. Now, this guy once proposed an increase in our redemption deposits from 5 cents to 10 cents, with only a return of 8 cents. The other 2 cents would be used to provide more funding for the recyclers and some other thing, maybe the environment, I don't remember. Basically he was proposing a new 2 cent tax on sodas, beers, energy drnks, etc. That was shot down, so he proposed our current deposit be expanded to water bottles, milk containers, and other such things. I could get behind that because it would expand our recycling efforts, and I would have more options for collecting money like the bum I am. Now that's all past issues, the deposit law bill dying in legislative limbo.
Today's article is what made me smile. We recently had a bill that expanded the power of public employee unions pass through the legislature. The bill HF 2645, would have allowed public employees to negotiate a wider range of issues including work shifts, leaves of absence and early retirement. With vague language, this could have led to millions of dollars in taxpayer funded unintended consequences. Unreasonable perks and benefits for these employees at a cost to the average joe's wallet through substantial new public expenditures. Governor Culver said he would veto this bill, straying from the party lines, and union alliances normally found in the democratic party.
Also up for debate and passed was an increase in pay for legislative members, including a $12,600 raise for the governor, putting total compensation at over $140,000 annually for him alone. After receiving massive input from the public, he has decided to veto this measure as well stating, "I believe it is wrong to say to the people of Iowa that you have to tighten your belts, but elected officials don't"

And so today, governor Culver, you made me smile. You looked out for the people of this state rather than your party and your lobbyist supporters.