Litigation

Rep. Paul Favors Right to Vote U.S. Judges off Bench

By Peter Hardin

Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, told an Iowa audience that Americans should have the same right to dump federal judges that Iowans exercised in November when they ousted three state Supreme Court justices.

“At the federal level, I think we ought to have the same rights you do in Iowa,” he told an audience at the University of Iowa campus, according to an Iowa City Press-Citizen article. He is a possible presidential candidate in 2012.

The three Iowa Supreme Court justices were denied new terms in retention elections, following a well-financed campaign by social conservatives to retaliate over a unanimous court ruling that permitted same-sex marriages.

Elsewhere in Iowa, five potential Republican presidential candidates in 2012 spoke at an event in Waukee. Among them was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

According to a CBS News report, Gingrich “complained that judges are ‘fundamentally out of touch with America’ and argued that Republicans have failed to keep the judiciary from becoming ‘more alienated from the American system.’”

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 08, 2011 (boomark / email).