Should they stay or should they go? On election day, Iowa voters will face one hot-button issue on the ballot sparked by gay marriage, whether or not to keep Iowa Supreme Court Justices in office.
Justices are appointed to office, but voters can decide whether or not to keep them.
Back in 2009, seven Supreme Court Justices ruled that a statute against gay marriage was unconstitutional.
The decision sparked a movement to vote them out of office and the next year, Justices Baker, Streit, and Ternus were up for a retention vote. They got voted out for the first time in Iowa history.
Now Justice Wiggins is up for the same vote, and both sides are on the campaign trail to sway voters to keep or get rid of him.
"It's a threat to freedom, we shouldn't allow courts to make law from the bench," Iowans For Freedom Chairman Bob Vander Plaats says.
"He's being used as a pawn, he's being targeted for removal, as if he were incompetent, and he clearly isn't," Retired Iowa 7th Judicial District Judge Charles Pelton says of the issue.
It's an election issue that puts the courts in with politics, and it started with three former Iowa Supreme Court Justices getting voted out.
Now another is up for a vote, and some argue the principles of the Constitution are at stake.
"The case is bigger than David Wiggins," Pelton says, "It's striking at the very heart of the principles we believe in freedom, in liberty, in equality and justice."
Those on the other side say these justices overstepped their duties when they made the call on same-sex marriage.
"Where in the constitution does it give permission to the supreme court to make law?" Vander Plaats says, "They don't have that ability to make law."
"We need to hold appointed officials and elected officials accountable when they break their oath to something they swore an oath to," he says.
Legal professionals with the Iowa State Bar Association say these justices were just doing their jobs.
"'The general assembly shall not grant any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens,'" Pelton says, quoting an article in the Iowa Constitution Bill of Rights.
"You apply that law to it, and you reach the result that you can't discriminate," Pelton says.
Now it's up to voters to make the call.
"Iowans were fooled once, I don't think Iowans will be fooled again," Pelton says.
"Flip the ballot over, and vote no on David Wiggins," Vander Plaats says, "This isn't personal; this is business, and this is the business of freedom and this is the business of the Constitution."
When justices are up for retention, they are evaluated by their peers under a judicial review to help voters decide.
In 2010, the ousted justices got approval ratings between 72 percent and 83 percent. The Justices who replaced them in 2011 all have scores in the 90s. Justice Wiggins is up for a vote this year, and his score is 63.3 percent.
The three remaining justices affected, Justices Cady, Hecht, and Appel, will be up for retention vote before their terms end in 2016.
For more information on both sides of the issue, visit these links:
Iowa State Bar Association: http://www.iowabar.org/
Iowans For Freedom: http://nowiggins.com/
