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Bob Vander Plaats, who has made opposition to same-sex marriage a cornerstone of his gubernatorial campaign, said Wednesday that codifying the specific issue of marriage, while still very important to him on a personal level, is secondary to the more important task of maintaining Iowa’s separation of powers.
Republican Bob Vander Plaats addresses the crowd after being endorsed by the Iowa Family Policy Center last month (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).
The Sioux City Republican, who has garnered an endorsement and seemingly unprecedented loyalty from at least one influential conservative religious group based largely upon his stance against same-sex marriage, said candidly that, to him, “the vote on the issue is the secondary issue.”
His focus now, and if he becomes the next governor of Iowa, he said, will be to act within the authority of his office to hold the other branches of government to their boundaries as outlined in the state constitution.
“The primary issue is holding a court in check,” he said. “You have a court that over-stepped its bounds to legislate from the bench, execute from the bench and amend the constitution from the bench. If you continue to allow a Supreme Court to go in that fashion, every one of your freedoms are up for grabs. That’s when you hand off tyranny and not liberty to the next generation.”
Although Vander Plaats has repeatedly promised that, if elected as governor, he would sign an executive order to end same-sex marriage in the state, the example he chose to illustrate a branch of Iowa’s government acting outside of its role was the 2005 executive order signed by former Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack that reinstated voting rights for felons who had completed their sentences. But in using this example, Vander Plaats did not get the facts of the legal battle correct.
“Just like, if you guys will recall, Tom Vilsack issued an executive order to allow felons to vote. The governor doesn’t get to make that law. The legislature gets to make that law,” Vander Plaats said. After a brief pause to deflect an interruption by a reporter, he continued, “Steve King then sued the governor and won the issue on that, and he had to rescind that executive order.”
Although the executive order signed by Vilsack was legally challenged, the suit was filed and argued by Muscatine County Attorney Gary Allison. Roughly four months after the executive order had been signed, the court ruled that Vilsack possessed the authority to issue the order. The executive order was never rescinded, remains in effect and is included in constituency information on the current state Web site. When asked by the Associated Press shortly after the decision whether he would appeal the court’s ruling upholding Vilsack’s executive order, Allison said, “The judge has the right to rule and we have the right to disagree with that ruling. But we respect the process in which the ruling was made.”
What Vander Plaats might have been referring to is the 2007 lawsuit King and others filed against the state in connection with the English-language law he introduced while serving in the state senate.
King’s complaint, which focused on several forms printed in foreign languages by the Iowa Secretary of State (an office held at the time of the lawsuit by Gov.-elect Chet Culver), was validated by the courts in April 2008. Michael Mauro, who was the Secretary of State-elect at the time the suit was filed, ultimately had to stop using the forms. No executive order, however, was a subject of that lawsuit.
Vander Plaats has faced criticism from constitutional scholars and members of his own party for advocating that a governor can and should issue an executive order in opposition to the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down the legislature’s earlier definition of marriage.
The court-approved order signed by Vilsack, however, only sought to address an issue that had long been under the auspices of the executive branch. It was not written in an attempt to address or question a different branch of Iowa government.
“Although I believe that marriage is one man, one woman and the foundation of our society, the key issue is the separation of powers,” he said. “What you had on April 3 is a court that went out of its jurisdiction. When that happens, you need to have a governor that will institute his executive role and hold a court in check.”
In that respect, the Iowa Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage may not be the only incident where Vander Plaats, if he were governor, would flex the executive authority of his office to right a perceived wrong. Although he did not provide a specific example or issue when asked to do so, Vander Plaats made clear that he believed the executive branch should stand against any decision that it feels usurps the separation of powers.
“[R]egardless of whether I agree or disagree with that opinion, I need to make sure that the proper process is followed,” he said.
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