Letter to the Editor: Judges are not above the Constitution

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John Hesling
Oskaloosa, Iowa 52577

A Court Room

TITLE: Judges are not above the Constitution

The Iowa Constitution limits the power and authority of all people in government. No one is above the Constitution. This includes courts and judges.

Last year the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that our marriage law was unconstitutional. The judges should have stopped right there, but they didn’t. They went too far when they declared what the new marriage law must be and then ordered Iowans to follow it. No court or judge has the authority to make a new law.

Under Articles III and XII of the Iowa Constitution only the legislature has law making power. Laws may be changed by our elected representatives, not by unelected judges. Judges have no authority to change the law to what they believe it ought to be.

Citizens who question court authority are strongly criticized by law professors, newspaper columnists and even by former Iowa Supreme Court Justices. They imply that we are not smart enough to really understand the situation.

But Iowans know about separation of powers with checks and balances. We know that when one branch of government exceeds its authority, our system is no longer balanced. Something must be done to check the violation. Our legislature has chosen to ignore the problem, so it is up to the people to solve it.

By attempting to make a new marriage law, the Iowa Supreme Court violated the Iowa Constitution and stepped over the line into politics. Article I says that the people have all the political power. And political matters are resolved by voting.

We, the people, can begin to restore balance in our state government. On November 2nd we can vote out (not retain) three of the Iowa Supreme Court Justices that did not follow our Constitution.

John Hesling
Oskaloosa

Posted by on Sep 15 2010. Filed under Editorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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