Iowa Republicans go after Bob Vander Plaats' judicial jihad; governor's spokesman rejects his assertions; former Lieutenant Governor tells him to 'come clean' and release donor names

Kay Henderson of Radio Iowa reported on the press conference by Justice Not Politics' Republican attorney Dan Moore who once served as treasurer for one of Vander Plaats' three unsuccessful campaigns for Iowa governor.

“Mr. Vander Plaats needs to provide straight answers and stop purveying misinformation about Iowa’s judiciary,” Moore said at a news conference in Des Moines. “Bob needs to stop conveying political rhetoric. Bob needs to acknowledge his efforts are to make the courts cede to special interests, not the constitution.”

Vander Plaats led the successful effort to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices in the 2010 judicial retention election, then he became chief executive of The Family Leader late last year, a group that has been at the center of the crusade against gay marriage in Iowa. Moore cited a recent Des Moines Register poll which found 45 percent of Iowans “disapprove” of Vander Plaats and his agenda and Moore suggested Vander Plaaats is “out of touch” with the “real issues” Iowans face.

... Moore said “I think where my friend Bob has crossed the line for me is now the senseless and reckless attacks on the remaining four justices on the Iowa Supreme Court.” Three days after the November election Vander Plaats began calling for the four justices to resign.

...Former Lieutenant Governor Joy Corning, who is also a Republican, has called upon Vander Plaats to “come clean” and release the names of donors to the effort to oust supreme court justices. Neither Vander Plaats or a spokesman for The Family Leader have responded to requests for comment.

Watch video here

Yesterday, Vander Plaats, also in Des Moines on a Family Leader bus tour of 99 Iowa counties, voiced implied criticism of fellow Republican and current governor Terry Branstad: "Within six hours, without even sleeping on it, we had three appointments," he said, arguing that it meant nearly half of the seven-member court was picked with almost no public debate.

The governor's spokesman, Tim Albrecht, rejected Vander Plaats' assertions.

"Branstad's goal was to choose Supreme Court justices, from the available slate of nine candidates, who are most likely to faithfully interpret the laws and Constitution and respect the separation of powers," Albrecht said.

Sioux City Journal asks:Who does Bob Vander Plaats think he is?

In an editorial entitled "Remaining justices should feel no obligation to resign" the Sioux City Journal noted:

     ... This week, Vander Plaats issued a new decree: The four justices who remain on the state Supreme Court should step down.
     Here's our question: Who does Vander Plaats think he is?
     During a news conference on Tuesday, Vander Plaats said the rest of the justices should resign because Iowans “... have spoken ...” on the subject of the court's gay marriage ruling. We would remind Vander Plaats the people of Iowa also spoke when they rejected his candidacy for governor or lieutenant governor in three different elections. In other words, Iowans have not voted Vander Plaats into any position of authority in the state.
     The four justices who remain on the court should feel no obligation to step down simply because their colleagues were defeated in their candidacies for retention. To state otherwise would be like saying President Obama should resign because his fellow Democrats lost the House.

Iowa Family Leader's
Bob Vander Plaats

Republican Vander Plaats ran failed bids for governor in 2002, 2006 and 2010. Often, he refers to himself as a "turnaround CEO," referring to his tenure at Opportunities Unlimited.

But Jackie Kibbie-Williams, a former board member and the person who succeeded Vander Plaats as CEO of Opportunities Unlimited told the Sioux City Journal that Vander Plaats’ inability to raise funds for Opportunities Unlimited in what is described as a hybrid management/board position led to his termination by the board.

Wells Blue Bunny: bankrolling bigotry; boycott launched following Vander Plaats refusal to apologize for 'Good one!' reaction to fag joke

On December 8th of last year, AKSARBENT reported the Vander Plaats-Wells Blue Bunny connection by noting, in passing, that "the finance chairman of the Vander Plaats for Governor Council of Advisors was Mike Wells, then-President of Demand Group at his family's business, Wells' Blue Bunny Dairy, in Le Mars, Iowa." This prompted one reader to comment "And I just ate my last spoonful of Wells Blue Bunny Ice Cream."

Apparently, that sentiment is spreading. A Boycott Blue Bunny facebook page, put up days ago, already has about 95,000 likes and 2000 posts, one of which urges people to also boycott store brands made by Wells Dairy, such as Great Value, Hy-Vee, Fareway, Shurfresh and Country Rich.

The Iowa Independent reported that Dean Genth of Mason City, the president of the Iowa Coalition of PFLAG Chapters, started the boycott of Blue Bunny ice cream and dairy products following Vander Plaats' refusal to comment on his "Good One!" reaction to a fag joke by a conservative Audubon, Iowa supporter caught on tape by Think Progress, which notes that Vander Plaats would have floundered in obscurity had it not been for the backing of well-connected and deep-pocketed donors, particularly the Wells family behind Wells Dairy.

Mike Wells, CEO of Wells Dairy,
Inc., and friend/funder of Bob
Vander Plaats' campaign to recall
all Iowa Supreme Court Justices

The company, headquartered in Le Mars, Iowa, is the third largest ice cream maker in the United States and sells its products under the Blue Bunny label. Wells Dairy has 5 percent market share behind Nestlé (Häagen-Dazs, Dreyer’s, Mövenpick) and Unilever (Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers Ice Cream), licenses the Weight Watchers brand of ice creams, sells Chef Duff’s ice cream (of Ace of Cakes fame), and partners with Disney to offer Disney-branded novelties. But the Wells family is interested in more than frozen desserts. Mike Wells, the president and CEO of the company, was a member of Vander Plaats’ council of advisers during his gubernatorial campaign and public records reveal that Wells family members have contributed at least $456,000 to Vander Plaats and his affiliated organizations and campaigns:

    – $184,500 from Wells family members for his 2010 gubernatorial race, his largest contributors.

    – $246,000 from Wells family members for his 2006 gubernatorial race.

    – $25,500 from Wells family members for his 2002 gubernatorial race.

    – $25,500 to the Iowa Family Center PAC, a group associates with the FAMiLY Leader.

Mike and his wife Cheryl Wells have also started at least two ministries, including The Living Center and Side by Side Ministries, aimed at spreading “the Word of God to others.” Vander Plaats also serves as a channel of the Almighty — and a loyal customer for the family’s product. As one local NBC news story concluded, after his loss in 2010, Vander Plaats “celebrated the end of the night with ice cream. [He] went 100 days without eating his favorite treat.”

Vander Plaats says Iowa Judges who defend them­selves against his new (and totally false) YouTube smear are 'doing a PR tour on taxpayers' expense'

Busted on video: Exposé of new smear of Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins by Bob Vanderplaats and Tamara Scott of Iowans for Freedom, a political goon squad "project" of the Iowa Family Leader.

Vander Plaats and Tamara Scott recently released an Iowans For Freedom YouTube video which smears Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins so outrageously, shamelessly and falsely that their political hucksterism has to be seen to be believed.
     In the video, Iowans For Freedom repeats four times a flagrantly deceptive out-of-context soundbite from Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins in a blatant attempt to trick voters into thinking that Wiggins confessed on camera to conspiring to circumvent Iowa's constitution regarding gay marriage.
     In fact, the soundbite wasn't about marriage at all, and the footage that Bob Vander Plaats and Tamara Scott & their organization connivingly discarded shows them to be political charlatans of the first magnitude.
     Via the good graces of some helpful Iowans, AKSARBENT has located the very video that Iowans for Freedom (the Family Leader political goon squad focused on judicial intimidation) ransacked for the soundbite that they subsequently distorted in a completely different context. Our video totally busts their chicanery and is at the top of this post. If what Vanderplaats and Tamara Scott have done to Justice Wiggins isn't defamation via libel then perhaps the words need to be redefined.
     Below is their press conference announcing Iowans For Freedom's new judicial Jihad, itself a work of art, in which Vander Plaats actually claims that justices defending themselves from his baseless accusations are 'doing a PR tour on taxpayers' expense.'



Bonus oldie — Vander Plaats' favorite lie about the Iowa Supreme Court:

"You don't make law from the bench. And if you do, we're going to hold you accountable for it."

Translation:

"At the fantasy law school I didn't attend, interpreting the constitutionality of laws is the job of the Supreme Court of Iowa unless evangelicals and their Pied Piper of the moment don't like the decision, in which case it is "Legislating From The Bench. By activist judges. All seven of them. But especially the ones appointed by Tom Vilsack."

Second best Vander Plaats quote:

According to David Barton, 80% of Americans think the courts have taken waaay too much power"

Bob Vander Plaats' source, David Barton, just wrote a book about Thomas Jefferson. It is so bad, the PUBLISHER recalled it for multiple factual inaccuracies, is pulping the book and eating the cost. Religious scholar Greg Forster said David Barton’s “inability to write reliable history stretches beyond ideological cheerleading into outright incompetence."  Oh, by the way, the History News Network just named Barton's Jefferson bio "the least credible history book in print." Nice to know from what author Bob Vander Plaats gets his facts, ain't it?

Third best quote, in which Vander Plaats proves he doesn't even know what the word "parameter" means, much less the law, the courts, Iowa's constitution or any other facts which deconstruct his relentless demagoguery:

"They [Iowa Supreme Court] just need to stay within the parameters of the constitution. If they do that, they're going to be OK."

From dictionarycentral.com:

The term 'parameter' is often misused by, for example, being confused with variable, or, even more vulgarly, with 'perimeter', as in the degraded English phrase 'within these parameters'.

Power-drunk homophobic Christer Bob Vander Plaats finds out he can't bully a $36 billion corporation

In less than a week the Iowa Family Leader's Bob Vander Plaats has careened off two targets whose willingness to capitulate to his intimidation he seriously misjudged.
     First, it was shifty Iowa GOP Governor Terry Branstad, who finally had to say something about the Iowa Governor's Conference on LGBTQ Youth that he won't be attending because of a "scheduling conflict" and from which he was accused of having underlings try to remove his office's name.
     After finding out that ducking questions about the machinations didn't make the issue disappear, Branstad finally told reporters he won't try to have the word "Governor" removed from the anti-gay bullying confab, saying (when backed into a corner) “I believe in treating everybody with respect and dignity and certainly we want to make sure that nobody is bullied.”
      Which caused Vander Plaats to fling blocks from his personal stash of refrigerator magnet phrases in the following order: “Governor Branstad needs to be held accountable for his support of this conference and the promotion of a very radical and dangerous left-wing agenda,”
     Which caused to Branstad to chuckle publicly at a news conference at Vander Plaats' remarks.
     No matter. The voices in Vander Plaats' head just regrouped and decided to go after a new target, Starbucks, after the company joined Microsoft and Nike and 97 other top Washington State companies in supporting marriage equality there.
      Specifically, Vander Plaats made a video trashing Starbucks' with invented quotations employing more of his refrigerator magnet phrases. Not only did these not stick either, but Starbucks apparently got mad and its lawyers got even, resulting in Vander Plaats quickly removing his YouTube attack video.
     Clearly, Vander Plaats is in way over his head waging a war of ideological extortion on a deep-pocketed organization evidently willing to call him — and the Iowa Family Leader — on their lies, to the point of offering to see one or both of them in court.

_________________________
* “God’s design of marriage is bad for families.”
   “Homosexual marriage is core to who they are.”

Power-drunk Vander Plaats demands all remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices resign; ACLU calls demand an irresponsible 'desire for revenge'; Court 'chooses not to respond'

Note: above frame shows former Iowa Supreme Court justice Mark McCormick, who opposes
Vander Plaats' efforts

Pugnacious Iowa troglodyte Bob Vander Plaats, who led the effort to remove three Iowa Supreme Court justices during the last election, has demanded that the four remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices resign. As of 6:00 pm Wednesday, KCCI was running a poll on whether they should do so here. (Hint, hint.)

Ben Stone, the director of the ACLU of Iowa, replied:

“Bob Vander Plaats’ recent demand that the four remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices resign is irresponsible. It does nothing to promote good government or the quality of justice in Iowa. Instead, it suggests a desire for revenge.
     Calling for these resignations is premature. These four justices will eventually come up for retention votes. Until those elections take place, the justices should do their jobs to the best of their abilities. Calling for their resignations now demonstrates little more than a push for retribution.
     Urging resignations also is irresponsible. The current court has been gutted by nearly half, slowing important cases and disrupting the ability of this critical court to function.
     It’s also just plain unwarranted. These justices, no matter what one thinks of marriage equality, were simply doing their job–applying the Iowa Constitution to the best of their ability.
     More than a half-century ago, state supreme courts across the country were making highly unpopular decisions on racial and gender equality, including the desegregation of schools and other public places. Those justices, too, were simply doing their job to determine equality under the law despite the lack of a contemporary popular mandate.”

Chuck Norris: crap actor, Vander Plaats
endorser and karate instructor to
Mormon Donny Osmond

Steve Davis, a spokesman for the Iowa Judicial Branch, said “the court chooses not to respond” to Vander Plaats’ comments.
     Vander Plaats' bid for governor, despite his endorsement by martial artist and actor Chuck Norris, ended in defeat during the primary by now Gov.-Elect Terry Branstad.

     The finance chairman of the Vander Plaats for Governor Council of Advisors was Mike Wells, President of Demand Group at his family's business, Wells' Blue Bunny Dairy, in Le Mars, Iowa.

Vander Plaats Organization, Iowa Family Leader, continues to exploit AIDS to attack gay marriage

Linda Waddington, of the Iowa Independent, reported Wednesday that Bob Vander Plaats, during a joint appearance in Iowa City, asserted that he wasn't "aware" of seminar series' propaganda posted on the website of the Iowa Family Leader, an organization that denies ties to the Mormon-led national organization with an identical name. When pressed, Vander Plaats, revealed he was aware of a posting on a gay blog which revealed links on the Family Leader website to the series' disinformation, partially based on studies by discredited former University of Nebraska psychologist Paul Cameron, whose junk statistics are apparently quite believable to Iowa state representative Dwayne Alons (R-Hull). (See video at end of this post.)

Web page of The Family Leader's website was captured and published by Igor Volsky
of Think Progress. It clearly shows The Family Leader advocating on behalf of the seminar series
that discussed same-sex marriage and homosexuality "second-hand effects."

     ...the organization’s website continues to advertise the seminars, and the leadership of its subsidiaries have repeatedly said homosexuality is as dangerous as second-hand smoke...
     During a back-and-forth with the reporter, who represented Iowa Public Radio, Vander Plaats asked if the question was result of a posting on the “Good As You” blog, and then noted that he and The Family Leader were not responsible for what may have appeared on that website.
     “The Family Leader has not been a part of that [seminar series],” Vander Plaats said. “The Family Leader — as a matter of fact, I’m the president and CEO of it — started in November 2010.
     ...The Family Leader is an umbrella organization that includes IFPC and the formerly federally funded counseling program Marriage Matters.
     “We have not held seminars on that,” Vander Plaats told The Iowa Independent during the follow-up interview. “My guess would be that maybe it was something done earlier… you know, ‘The Other Effects’ — I don’t know how they (the IFPC) phrased it. I was not aware of it.”
     ...When asked by The Iowa Independent how a blogger posted a screen shot of The Family Leader’s website with information about the seminar series, Vander Plaats pledged to look into it.
     Chuck Hurley, who leads the Iowa Family Policy Center, made the charge in March 2010 that gay marriage was more dangerous than smoking...
     Days later the IFPC published information in its blog entitled: “What’s Worse — Smoking or Sodomy?"
     A website promoting the seminar series indicates that sessions have been held in at least 11 Iowa cities, but no dates are provided. Downloads available on the “Second-Hand Effects” website make several public health claims about homosexuality. The first such claim — that being a homosexual reduces an individual’s life span — was used by conservative radio host Jan Mickelson in February 2010 as he introducing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Vander Plaats at an event in Des Moines... 

Fred Karger goes to Iowa, rips NOM's John Eastman as he files first of two new complaints against National Organization for Marriage: 'They’re a crooked organization. They defy the law willingly.'

Karger fills out complaint, with Megan Tooker of
the Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board.
(Via Radio Iowa; listen to his presser here.)

According to The New Civil Rights Movement:

“A second complaint will be filed by Karger the following day, this one with the Federal Election Commission (FEC),” the release adds:

The 65 page sworn and notarized complaint is against former Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum, the National Organization for Marriage and Family Leader CEO Bob Vander Plaats.
Karger’s FEC complaint will request an investigation into the “Pay for Play” question surrounding Mr. Vander Plaats’ highly controversial eleventh hour endorsement of Rick Santorum for President. Several other candidates sought Vander Plaats’ endorsement just two weeks before the all-important 2012 Iowa Caucus, but he went with Santorum. Governor Rick Perry said at the time that Vander Plaats’ endorsement cost up to $1 million.

Mr. Santorum who received the coveted endorsement on December 20, 2011 had no money in his campaign bank account. Our complaint will show how the National Organization for Marriage and its consultants played a major role in paying for and securing the Vander Plaats endorsement of Rick Santorum for President.

Here's an excerpt from the Radio Iowa audio of Karger's press conference at the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board in Des Moines, earlier today, starting at the 8:40 mark:

This group constantly feels that it's above the law... last week, you may have seen the Ways and Means Committee hearings in Washington. John Eastman, who is the chairman [of NOM]... he's a former law school dean at Chapman Law School in California, a professor there now, has defied the Supreme Court ruling on their disclosure of their donor names in Maine, yet he stands before the Ways and Means Committee last week complaining that the IRS released documents — which they admitted they did, inadvertently — which showed their donor names... eleven names, including Mitt Romney, showed that they had not reported those in California on Prop 8... They had selectively reported some donors — most donors —  but not this $345,000 worth. So they're a crooked  organization, they defy the law willingly, and then have the gall to stand up before the Ways and Means [Committee], grandstanding, not talking about any of the problems they have had, and the laws they've broken and blaming the IRS and blaming President Obama... citing them in the release of these IRS documents.

Below is the hypocrisy and bombast on the part of NOM's John Eastman, to which Karger referred, at a recent IRS hearing in D.C., in which an enraptured GOP Rep. Thomas Price, of Georgia's 6th Congressional District, ate up with a spoon Eastman's performance depicting the nailing of NOM and its enablers to the cross with unspecified acts of oppression by marriage equality supporters:



One of the organizations associated with Bob Vander Plaats, who is named in Karger's FEC complaint, is Iowa's Family Leader. Its vice president, Chuck Hurley, said, in a written statement:

“In considering the source (a notorious attention-seeker) and motive of the false allegation, we won’t dignify it with any comment, except that the public record is clear, and we will respond if election officials request additional clarification,” Hurley said.

Here are two of AKSARBENT's videos about the tactics of Chuck Hurley's organization, Iowa's Family Leader, which failed in its latest attempt to unseat an Iowa Supreme Court Judge, Justice David Wiggins, whom it smeared in a laughably out-of-context quote it plastered on the side of a bus (see second video for the anatomy of their defamation.)
     The Iowa Bar Association was so disgusted by the behavior of Hurley and Vander Plaats that it took the extraordinary measure of renting a truck to follow the Family Leader bus all over Iowa to set the record straight before media at every stop:

Bob Vander Plaats, dollar store demagogue

We always knew Vander Plaats was a money-grasping bully. But he has never revealed, with such clarity, the degree to which he is also a judicial anarchist. In Iowa, as in every other state, the interpretation of the constitution isn't made by you or me or Mike Gronstal or Bob Vander Plaats or the Family Leader or the carpetbaggers from the National Organization for Marriage of Washington, DC.
     Only seven people get to decide what the Iowa Constitution means, and those seven people — the Iowa Supreme Court — appointed by both Democratic and Republican Governors, spoke loudly and clearly and unanimously when they found the proscription against gay marriage unconstitutional, so they struck that language. They didn't create a new law or "legislate from the bench," no matter what unprincipled liars like Vander Plaats or Brian Brown say.
     Bob Vander Plaats thinks his self-serving collection of "loving" bigots should be able to second-guess the decision via a mob thumbs-down. To get his way, he's been taking out judges* by abusing the retention vote process, which was never meant to be a means of exacting revenge on justices with whose decisions one disagrees — it's supposed to be a way of removing corrupt judges or those who are simply too old to do their jobs.
     Here's an excerpt from Vander Plaat's asinine remarks in the Iowa statehouse yesterday:

You see, on April 3, 2009, you had a supreme court who stepped outside of its constitutional authority and said Iowa will be a same-sex marriage state. They had no power to legalize it. They had no power to execute that opinion. But they did it anyway. And in the process, what they did was they told the people of Iowa, "Your voice doesn't matter. Your voice doesn't count. They shunned the people of Iowa. They shunned the legislature. They shunned the law.

Oh shut up.


(Via Towleroad)

----------------------------------
*Vander Plaats has repeatedly trumpeted his success at conning heterosexual supremacist Christers (with hundreds of thousands of dollars of out-of-state, anonymously-contributed National Organization for Marriage dough) into dumping Iowa justices as some kind of great populist victory. Not really — about 30% of Iowans customarily vote to dump every judge on their ballots, a fact of which we were unaware until Mike Gronstal pointed it out to us.

Did Iowa Family Leader's Bob Vander Plaats and Chuck Hurley try to shake down Rick Santorum in a 'pay-for-play' endorsement scheme?

Recently Bob Vander Plaats, head of the Iowa Family Leader, and Chuck Hurley, head of the Iowa Family Policy Council, a subsidiary of the Family Leader, both endorsed Rick Santorum even though their respective organizations did not. Yesterday Iowans began getting robo-calls that feature Vander Plaats’ voice promoting Rick Santorum. The calls say they were paid for by a super PAC called “Leaders for Families.”

The Des Moines Register quotes Santorum directly as saying Vander Plaats told him “he needed money” to promote his eventual endorsement.

ThinkProgress reports that ABC News has learned Vander Plaats tried to solicit money in exchange for his endorsement during the last presidential cycle too.

A former staffer for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential bid who is currently unaffiliated with a campaign said Vander Plaats came to them seeking money for his backing if he supported the former Massachusetts governor. “He wanted to be paid,” the former staffer said. “He was clearly looking for a paycheck. There was a conversation about him getting a title, but being a paid consultant was much more important.”

Here's what the Rachel Maddow show had to say:

Quotes of the Day — subject: Bob Vander Plaats

From Under the Golden Dome, 5/31/11

Just recently @Crazy_BobVP was created to poke fun at
Iowa’s poodle trainer. The accounts tweets are harmless
jokes, such as the user’s post “That’s funny, I don’t
remember telling @MittRomney that he is allowed to
come to Iowa this month” or “If the rapture takes place
on Saturday the Capturing Momentum Tour will begin at
noon on Tuesday at the pizza ranch by the pearly gates.”
But sometime recently, the account was suspended by
Twitter for impersonation.
     After looking into Twitter’s Impersonation account
suspension process, filing a report to cancel an account
is a drawn out process that could take as long as a week
to complete. And the person filing the report has to
provide, among other things, a fax of his/her driver’s
license and a signed letter requesting the account be
deactivated.  To sum it up, Cry-Baby Bob had to take a
lot of time out of his ‘busy’ day of hunting RINOs and
traveling to Pizza Ranches to make sure this harmless
parody of him was silenced.  This shouldn’t come as a
surprise to anyone who knows the history of this spoiled
little infant that is disguised as a politician in big-boy
clothes.
     Even Congressional candidate Christie Vilsack has a
parody account: @FakeChristieV. Her tweets include
“The welcome sign in Primghar, ‘Where men are men
and the sheep are nervous.’  WHAT KIND OF SICK
FUCKS ARE WE DEALING WITH HERE?!!!” and
“Algona means ‘toothless bastards’ in Norwegian.
They’re living up to your name today, good God.
#listeningtour”
     These accounts are still active because the politicians
they joke about have realized that mockery is part of
being in the public spotlight. Bob “Hissy Fit” Vander
Plaats should realize that he cannot stop the satire
that will follow him everywhere, especially when he
surrounds himself with musket-toting Tea Party
activists and says that the Government needs to cut
spending while his organization took $3 million from
in federal grants.
     Crazy Bob appears to have plenty of time on his hands,
so I’d like to encourage everyone to create their own
Bob Vander Plaats parody account.  You’ll know you’ve
won when Bob decides to spend a week working to get
the account deleted.  Then just start up a new one!
And lastly I would like to give Bob a bit of advice: if you
can’t take a joke, get a real job, stop saying crazy things,
and stop parading around the state holding tea party
rallies at Pizza Ranches.

The campaign against Iowa’s judiciary by Bob Vander Plaats is funded by out-of-state money, the speakers are from out of state, and the buses are from out of state,” she said. “It is simply an exercise in the use of PAC money and special interest money and out of state interests.

— Attorney Christine Branstad, Gov. Terry's niece, quoted in GavelGrab

It says nothing in the federal constitution about same sex couples being allowed to marry, However it says nothing about marriage between conventional couples either....In fact the Federal constitution says nothing about marriage being a right at all. So how is giving same sex partners the right to Marry a attack of a conventional couples rights, when they have no mention of having the right to marriage in the Federal constitution either? Vander Plaats is a nutcase with his own personal agenda.

— Kevin Griffiths, in a comment to the Des Moines Register

So, by upholding the Iowa constitution and allowing same sex marriage, I am going to lose all my freedoms. I will lose more of my freedoms if Rick Santorum and Bob Vander Plaats get their way.

— Stephen Brubaker, in a comment to the Des Moines Register

Iowa State Bar Assn. President: Vander Plaats' scare tactics and misinformation do Iowans tremendous disservice

Guy Cook Update from Iowa State Bar Association on Vimeo.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 12, 2012

The Iowa State Bar Association responds to misleading information in Family Leader message

The Iowa State Bar Association issued a statement Sunday to correct misinformation contained in a quote by Bob Vander Plaats during a Saturday gathering organized by the Family Leader organization.

Vander Plaats was quoted as saying that the Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled in the same-sex marriage case in 2009 went “outside of the constitution” and “outside your [their] separation of powers” and “amend [amended] “the constitution from the bench.”

The truth is Justice Wiggins and the other Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled unanimously in the Varnum decision on same-sex marriage did not “go outside of the constitution.” Iowa’s constitution proclaims that all citizens are to be treated equally. The justices simply applied the equal protection clause of the constitution.

• The court and Justice Wiggins did not "amend the constitution from the bench." They applied the constitution. The constitution remains the same.
• Removing more justices will not change the law; only Iowa's legislature can do that by amending the state's constitution.
• Removing more justices will only serve to weaken our courts and deny individual freedoms and liberty.

“The courts are the final guardians of our freedom and liberty,” said ISBA President Cynthia Moser. “The scare tactics and misinformation being used by Mr. Vander Plaats do all Iowans a tremendous disservice."

Iowans, even those who may disagree with a ruling, should reject efforts to further politicize our courts. Iowa judges should not be politicians who rule in return for votes.

"Bob Vander Plaats’ efforts to politicize justice in Iowa is good for no one, including those who may disagree with a court ruling," added Guy Cook, ISBA president-elect and chair of the association’s Fair and Impartial Courts Committee.

We urge Iowans to become as knowledgeable as possible about Justice Wiggins and the other 73 judges up for retention in order to make an informed decision in the voting booth. Iowa’s courts consistently rank in the top five in the nation for being fair. Iowans have a reputation for being open-minded and fair. It would be a shame to throw away that record and that reputation.

The Iowa State Bar Association is a voluntary organization of more than 8,000 lawyers and judges who are licensed to practice law in the state of Iowa. Oldest of the voluntary bar associations in the country, The ISBA has been in continuous operation since its founding in 1874.

KTIV: Dan Moore on Vander Plaats' new fundraising jihad to dump Iowa justices; Nathan W. Tucker: Illinoisians enter Iowa to obtain 'sodomy licenses'

KTIV of Sioux City Iowa recently interviewed the co-chair of Fair Courts for US, Dan Moore, who supported retention of Iowa Supreme Court justices during November's election.

In the interview, Moore discussed Bob Vander Plaats' most recent fundraising initiative as CEO of his new umbrella organization, Iowa's The Family Leader, which founder Chuck Hurley has claimed has no ties to the identically-named Mormon-led organization.

Using the sports analogies of which Vander Plaats is fond, Moore accused Vander Plaats of disagreeing with the ref and then attempting to burn down the stadium.

Apparently, the Iowa GOP will push hard on social issues in 2011.

Rod Boshart of the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that Richard Johnson of the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency and his staff of attorneys are handling about 650 bill requests — roughly half sought confidentially — that already have come in from current and soon-to-be sworn-in new members of the Legislature, noting that it took until Jan. 14 for LSA drafters to hit 650 bill requests two years ago.

Republicans will hold a 60-40 edge in the House, while Democrats will retain at least a 26-vote majority in the Senate where two GOP seats are the subject of special elections in January to replace Lt. Gov-elect Kim Reynolds, R-Osceola, in Senate District 48 and Larry Noble, R-Ankeny, who resigned his Senate District 35 seat to become Governor-elect Terry Branstad’s public safety commissioner when the new administration begins Jan. 14.

Broshart also reports that some Iowa lawmakers will try to establish a residency requirement for couples seeking to be married in Iowa, intended to halt the influx of same-gender couples traveling to Iowa to exchange vows and then return to their home states, as well as to provide a “marriage conscience protection” for people in official positions – such as county recorders responsible for issuing marriage licenses – who object to same-sex marriages.

On the subject of out-of-state gay couples marrying in Iowa, Nathan Tucker, a conservative Davenport attorney, wrote in the Iowa Republican in December:

Despite now being able to enter into a de facto marriage relationship in their home state, many gay Illinoisans still desire the perceived public approval and legitimacy that comes from the actual word “marriage.” For them, the reciprocity provision provides the best of both worlds–obtain an actual marriage certificate in Iowa and have it recognized in Illinois.

This likely means an influx of Illinoisans crossing the border to obtain their sodomy licenses that will, for the first time, be recognized as valid when they return home.

Tucker, second from left, at judicial retention forum in October
hosted by Simpson College and the Iowa Independent

In addition to his extensive contributions to the Iowa Republican website, Nathan W. Tucker, has an "invitation-only" personal blog and is the author of a tract entitled "We the People: The Only Cure To Judicial Activism" available for $12.99 on Amazon.com. No reviews of his publication yet have appeared.

OneIowa: Tell Vander Plaats to quit bullying Iowans

OneIowa, the state's largest LGBT organization, has posted a petition on its website after a video surfaced showing the Family Leader head laughing and complimenting a joke insulting gay people last March at a whistlestop during Vander Plaats "Capturing the Momentum" Iowa bus tour. The joke, employing a gutter term for gay people, was cracked by a conservative supporter in Audubon, Iowa at a Subway sandwich shop meeting held by Vander Plaats

Though the news broke less than 20 hours ago, 923 people have already signed. The verbiage:

Dear Bob,

Throughout the debate on marriage, you have claimed that you want to have a civil discussion on the issues affecting loving, committed gay and lesbian Iowans. Yet, as you continue to use hurtful and derogatory language, you are showing more and more that you are not interested in a civil debate, but only furthering your political career. Your comments have hurt not only gay and lesbian Iowans, but all Iowans, and have made our state a joke throughout the country.

Mr. Vander Plaats, you do not speak for me, and I demand that you issue an apology to gay and lesbian Iowans for your hurtful comments and actions.

No on Wiggins campaign: Here's what happens when you go down the Bob Vander Plaats road...

Florida's Republican Party declared on Friday that they will
work to unseat the state supreme court justices who
blocked Gov. Rick Scott's plan to suppress minority voting.
(Via JoeMyGod)

Bob Vander Plaats and Iowans For Freedom (IFF), the political hit squad of the Iowa Family Leader, are taking their roadshow of character assassination (see above video) targeting Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins, all over the state this week, literally being followed by the Iowa State Bar Association, which hired its own truck.
     The result of Vander Plaats' cynical campaign to abuse Iowa's judicial retention process with the help of well-funded, secretive out-of-state carpetbaggers like the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal, is that the Iowa Supreme Court is being packed with middle-aged white male Republicans appointed by Terry Branstad to replace the judges IFF is methodically picking off.
     Predictions by critics about the danger posed to judicial independence by partisan demagogues like Vander Plaats is now coming true. Exhibit A: Florida.
     KMA reports that Cynthia Moser, president of the 8000 lawyers and judges of the Iowa State Bar Association — oldest in the country — expects local lawyers to speak in many of the cities where the dueling bus tours will stop.
     “I think obviously 2010 was a turning point for all of us who saw what happened to three exceptionally talented and dedicated Supreme Court justices,” Moser told KMA. “I think it was a galvanizing event.”
      Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum will tour with the bus troupe starting Monday and former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will join on Wednesday.

No Wiggins bus tour: Sioux City Journal joins Des Moines Register in excoriating Vander Plaats, Iowa Family Leader

Read the entire editorial in the Sioux City Journal here.

...Regardless of their views about gay marriage, Iowans should understand: The independent foundation on which a strong court system is based is at risk of being weakened in our state. The kinds of organized campaigns we have witnessed in 2010 and again this year to drive out judges as political retaliation for a ruling establishes an unsettling precedent for a future in which the infusion of political ideology routinely will force Iowa judges to raise money and wage political campaigns to stay on the bench. These questions arise: Will judges begin to consider the political ramifications of rulings? Will judges become beholden to special interests and their cash?
     Once you open the door to politics, it's hard to close it. Today, Vander Plaats is unhappy about an "activist" court decision; tomorrow, the leader of some left-leaning political organization may be upset about what he or she perceives as an "activist" ruling and seek payback - and the cycle will continue.
     We subscribe to the narrow view of retention votes. Judges should be removed from the bench only for reasons of malfeasance or gross incompetence, not for political retribution. Removing Ternus, Baker and Streit didn't overturn the controversial 2009 court decision and removing Wiggins won't either. Defeating them is meant to punish them and warn others.
     Those Iowans who wish to make gay marriage illegal would be better-advised to focus their energy on electing more state legislators who agree with them this fall in anticipation of pushing a constitutional amendment through the General Assembly.
     According to Vander Plaats, he's working to restore integrity to our court system. In our view, he's doing the opposite - sucking integrity out of it.
     By voting to retain Wiggins, Iowans will reject this political power play and send a message of opposition to the short-sighted, misguided injection of politics into our state's judicial system. We are hopeful of just such an outcome. (Via OneIowa.org)

Related: In his story about the dueling bus tours, Ron Marasco of WOI-DT chronicled what may well be the dumbest statement by an Iowan to find its way into print yesterday:

"Judge Wiggins legislated from the bench when he joined the Varnum decision," said Pella resident Lyle Horman.  "But the other reason is that according to the lawyers who participated in the Iowa Bar Association survey, more than 36% of them felt that Judge Wiggins should not be retained."

Hmmm, let's do the math here, Mr. Horman. If 36% of the Iowa Bar doesn't think Wiggins should be retained, then 64% do. May we remind you, Mr. Horman, that if your cheerleader, Bob Vander Plaats, had achieved an approval rating that high among the electorate, he would have been elected instead of losing when he ran for governor in 2002. And in 2006 when he quit to join his primary challenger on a lower rung on the ticket — and lost. And in 2010 when he ran for governor again — and lost.

Yes, there IS such a thing as bad publicity — if you ran a coffee shop, would you want Bob Vander Plaats running around with your store's name on a foam cup?

We suppose that, if he has one, the dog of the Iowa Family Leader's Bob Vander Plaats, Fierce Defender of Marriage Against Imaginary Threats, ate the memo announcing that, since the Varnum v. Brien decision legalizing same-sex marriage in Iowa, divorces have declined to their lowest per capita level since 1968 — 7,286.
     Despite the fact that Iowas favor gay marriage by about seven percentage points, Vander Plaats evidently has no qualms about flogging the failed Starbucks boycott started by the National Organization for Marriage and taken up by the Family Research Council:

I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna take a look at other coffee shops and support those who support God's design for the family. Who support the freedoms that we have in this country and what makes this country so great and what we hold dear.

We're not so sure we would want our coffee advertised as the choice of dishonest heterosexual supremacists, but considering what ABC News said about Vanderplaats trying to shake down Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, maybe Vander Plaats has a secret plan to shake down coffee house owners by NOT endorsing their products! Far fetched, but we wouldn't put it past him.

Iowa: Herman Cain says he'd hire a gay staffer;Host Bob Vander Plaats quickly changes the subject

Herman Cain with another one of
his very odd friends

Yesterday the Des Moines Register reported that after a speech in Pella, Iowa hosted by the Iowa Family Leader, Herman Cain told a blogger who asked whether he'd be opposed to appointing someone who is gay but qualified for a White House position:

"Nope, not at all. I wouldn't have a problem with that at all," he said as stragglers from the crowd listened in and Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the Family Leader, stood next to him.

"I just want people who - I want qualified," said Cain, 65, a former pizza chain chief executive who lives in suburban Atlanta. "I want them to basically believe in the Constitution of the United States of America, so, yep, I don't have a problem with appointing an openly gay person."

Standing next to Cain was Bob Vander Plaats, who campaigned to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices after that body unanimously ruled to legalize same-sex marriage in 2009.

The Register reported that Vander Plaats didn't react to Cain's comment, but quickly changed the subject.

Video: Head of Iowa Family Leader cracks up over lame fag joke in Audubon; How Vander Plaats incites homophobia in Iowa bigots

Here, Bob Vander Plaats appears to laugh at a dumb fag joke (or humors a rube he is manipulating) at a gathering of Audubon, Iowa bigots conservatives at a Subway restaurant during a March 28 whistle stop of his Capturing Momentum tour. His organization, the Iowa Family Leader, claims to have nothing to do with the national Mormon-led organization with an identical name and a similar agenda. You can believe that if you like. Video via Think Progress.

What is most sinister about Vander Plaats isn't him laughing at an offensive joke. It's how cynically and skillfully he baits the hook when politically seducing rural homophobes. He actually uses the "Stand with us because people are starting to think Iowans are queer!" approach. Apparently this ploy works in Audubon.

This is what Vander Plaats said just before the joke:

You wouldn't believe how many people call us who grew up in Iowa or have Iowa ties... Denver today or Chicago or whatever; they said "They're [Iowans] the butt of a lot of jokes..." You know, around the office... "Iowa! You know how those guys are." You know?

IA antigay activist Bob Vander Plaats, anti-gay marriage group under investigation by feds

From the Sunlight Foundation:

     The Federal Election Commission is asking former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and an anti-gay marriage organization to tell the agency why it should not investigate an allegation that they violated campaign finance limits during the last election.
      The complaint, brought by Fred Karger, a gay rights activist who ran a quixotic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, accuses Santorum of coordinating with the National Organization for Marriage to pay $1 million to Vander Plaats to endorse him, with the money eventually going for ads backing Santorum. That would be a violation of campaign finance law.

     Below: Vander Plaats and NOM (National Organization for Marriage) in an unsuccessful smear campaign to unseat Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins.