In his first press conference since the Iowa Supreme Court voided the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, Gov. Chet Culver said last Wednesday that Iowa’s voters will have their voices heard on the issue, even if a constitutional amendment doesn’t become reality.
“[Opponents] can talk to their legislators about amending the constitution,” Culver said. “They will have the option on the ballot in 2010 to call for a constitution convention. So the voters will have an opportunity to weigh in on this.”
When the court’s ruling was made public Friday, Culver issued a statement saying only that he would study the decision before making any further statements. Tuesday, he ended his silence, saying he was “reluctant to support amending the Iowa Constitution to add a provision that our Supreme Court has said is unlawful and discriminatory.”
Opponents had hoped Culver, who had previously said he would go so far as to call a special session to “protect marriage between a man and a woman,” would take a firm stand against the ruling, bolstering their efforts to pass a constitutional amendment overturning the court’s ruling.
After four days of consideration, Culver rejected that argument.
“We have to be very respectful of the Equal Protection Clause of the Iowa Constitution,” Culver said. “This court in a unanimous decision has stated that it is discriminatory to deny people rights given to them in our constitution.”
Culver said he waited to make a decision in order to avoid a “knee-jerk reaction.”
“This decision took more than four months to come down from the court,” he said. “I think it’s appropriate to take as much time as necessary, in my case four days, to thoroughly read the decision. It’s 69 pages long. It involves a lot of complex legal arguments on both sides. I also thought it was important for me to sit down with the Attorney General.”
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller released a statment Friday supporting the court’s ruling.
Culver said the voters will ultimately decide the issue due to the fact that the option to hold a constitutional convention is on 2010 ballot.
“We have not had one since 1857,” he said. “So, we’ll see what the people of Iowa have to say about that.”
If a convention is held, it will be “much broader than this one issue.”
“Might be the opportunity to have a convention to reaffirm our commitment to hardworking people; to work at that convention to ensure we continue to fight for our teachers; to work at that convention to protect seniors and their rights; to work at that convention to protect veterans,” Culver said.
Opponents of same-sex marriage say they will continue to fight to overturn last week’s Supreme Court ruling, but they admit the chances of action this year are slim.
“It appears unlikely,” said Danny Carroll, a former Republican legislator from Grinnell who serves as chairman of the Iowa Family Policy Center Action Board. “The legislature can still take it up in the 2010 session, but that may be difficult to accomplish as well.”
With Democratic legislative leaders coming out in support of the ruling, and Gov. Chet Culver saying he would be reluctant to amend the state’s constitution, same-sex marriage foes are left with few avenues for change in the short term.
State Reps. Dwayne Alons, a Hull Republican, and Dolores Mertz, an Ottosen Democrat, introduced a bill last month that would amend Iowa’s Constitution and define marriage as being between a man and a woman. In order for the bill to be debated this late in the legislative session, however, Democratic legislative leaders would have to introduce it to the floor, something Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, a Council Bluffs Democrat, flatly rejected earlier this week.
A public push against the ruling has been slow going, Carroll said, because a lot of people around the state had forgotten the issue was even before the Supreme Court.
“It takes so long for the court to issue a decision; I mean [Polk County Judge Robert] Hansen made his ruling in August 2007,” he said. “It’s been almost a year and a half. That’s a long time, so the ruling caught a lot of people by surprise. They had forgotten it was even there.”
Iowa’s social conservatives will be aided, however, by the National Organization for Marriage, a group that last year helped in the passage of California’s ballot initiative amending the state constitution to eliminate same-sex couples’ right to marry. The organization is launching a $1.5 million ad campaign in several states, including Iowa, hoping to energize opponents of same-sex marriage by making the case that it will directly affect their lives.
Several House Republicans have privately discussed using a procedural move to bring an amendment to the floor without legislative leadership’s approval. The move, called House Rule 60, allows any bill to skip the committee process and go directly to a floor debate if a majority of legislators support it. Former House Minority Leader Christopher Rants, a Sioux City Republican, attempted the same thing last year, falling two votes short in a much more narrowly divided House.
Ultimately, though Carroll said opponents would have to work to change the legislature if they hope to change the constitution, and with so much time before the 2010 elections, it is unclear if that will happen.
“With the passage of time, things have a tendency to cool off,” he said. “Whether or not the people of Iowa will see this as a priority leading into November of 2010 I’m not sure.”
