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Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-28T15:35:00Z

DaveLeach: /* Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings? */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

====1. Consensus of the Supreme Court:====

The Supreme Court said the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.

[https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/090b9509-588e-4de2-beac-b6bc47480980?j=eyJ1IjoibnZkM3kifQ.HLEy01XSAsjh7U0boWW6-uXA2Z1s-DcEoJ2RiyGU3Wk Nixon v. United States], 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

====2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions====

The plain words of the federal and state constitutions place no such limits on impeachments. The Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, and that to do so is impeachable, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S. Constitution, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not originally defined as violations of criminal law but to political crimes, which means outrageous rulings were the primary originally intended target of impeachments. a fact usually left out of discussions today.

Justice Story, author of "Commentaries on the Constitution" (1833), wrote that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”

Blackstone wrote in 1757, “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment...."

The phrase “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, a ground of impeachment listed in the Constitution, has nothing to do with the same words as used in criminal court today, and really there is no simple definition. They are political crimes.

<blockquote>"...whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; . . . whatever . . .[the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office." - President Gerald Ford, Speaker of the House who became president after President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were removed from office</blockquote>

Dennis Owens, director of the Notre Dame Law School Legislative Research Service and Editor in Chief, wrote "High Crimes and Misdemeanors: the Definitions of an Impeachable Offense", as President Nixon was being impeached. He wrote that Justice Joseph Story said the point of impeachment is not about punishing the offender. It’s about protecting the nation from gross official harm, whether from incompetence or intentional malice. So surely that CAN mean anything alarming enough to, as President Ford said, secure the votes of half the House and two thirds of the Senate.

<blockquote>Justice Story noted that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”
....in no sense was a criminal offense required. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanor” is not derived from the criminal law. It is parliamentary in origin. Thus, Commons impeached government officials for procuring offices for persons unfit and unworthy for them, neglecting to safeguard the seas as a Great Admiral was required, putting a seal on an ignominious treaty, misleading the sovereign. These charges bear out Story's commentary.

....At the time when the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is first met in the proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk in 1388, there was in fact no such crime as a “misdemeanor.” Lesser crimes were prosecuted as “trespasses” well into the sixteenth century, and only then were “trespasses” supplanted by [the term] “misdemeanors” as a category of ordinary crimes.... “High crimes and misdemeanors” were a category of political crimes against the state, whereas “misdemeanors” described criminal sanctions for private wrongs....

...for though “misdemeanor” entered into the [terminology of] ordinary criminal law, it did not become the criterion of “high misdemeanor” in the parliamentary law of impeachment. Nor did either [the terms] “high crimes” or “high misdemeanors” find their way into the general criminal law of England. As late as 1757 Blackstone could say that “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment....

In sum, “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear to be words of art confined to impeachments, without roots in the ordinary criminal law and which, so far as I could discover, had no relation to whether an indictment would lie in the particular circumstance.</blockquote>

“Contemporaneous with the drafting and adopting of our own Constitution was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in Great Britain. Hastings resigned the governor-generalship of India before he left India in February 1785, 2 years before articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Commons for his conduct in India.” - Govinfo.gov

Certainly, it was believed, “attempts to subvert the Constitution” ought to be impeachable if anything can be! Hastings was not guilty of treason and yet was justifiably impeached, and likewise American officials ought not escape impeachment just because their destruction of freedom lacks the intent that is an element of “treason”.

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about maybe should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

====How can a judge violate the Constitution? Judges ARE the Constitution!====

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is ''possible for'' a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

==Public Hearings==

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

==The Two-Thirds Majority==

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-28T15:33:58Z

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

====1. Consensus of the Supreme Court:====

The Supreme Court said the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.

[https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/090b9509-588e-4de2-beac-b6bc47480980?j=eyJ1IjoibnZkM3kifQ.HLEy01XSAsjh7U0boWW6-uXA2Z1s-DcEoJ2RiyGU3Wk Nixon v. United States], 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

====2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions====

The plain words of the federal and state constitutions place no such limits on impeachments. The Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, and that to do so is impeachable, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S. Constitution, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not originally defined as violations of criminal law but to political crimes, which means outrageous rulings were the primary originally intended target of impeachments. a fact usually left out of discussions today.

Justice Story, author of "Commentaries on the Constitution" (1833), wrote that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”

Blackstone wrote in 1757, “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment...."

The phrase “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, a ground of impeachment listed in the Constitution, has nothing to do with the same words as used in criminal court today, and really there is no simple definition. They are political crimes.

<blockquote>"...whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; . . . whatever . . .[the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office." - President Gerald Ford, Speaker of the House who became president after President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were removed from office</blockquote>

Dennis Owens, director of the Notre Dame Law School Legislative Research Service and Editor in Chief, wrote "High Crimes and Misdemeanors: the Definitions of an Impeachable Offense", as President Nixon was being impeached. He wrote that Justice Joseph Story said the point of impeachment is not about punishing the offender. It’s about protecting the nation from gross official harm, whether from incompetence or intentional malice. So surely that CAN mean anything alarming enough to, as President Ford said, secure the votes of half the House and two thirds of the Senate.

<blockquote>Justice Story noted that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”
....in no sense was a criminal offense required. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanor” is not derived from the criminal law. It is parliamentary in origin. Thus, Commons impeached government officials for procuring offices for persons unfit and unworthy for them, neglecting to safeguard the seas as a Great Admiral was required, putting a seal on an ignominious treaty, misleading the sovereign. These charges bear out Story's commentary.

....At the time when the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is first met in the proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk in 1388, there was in fact no such crime as a “misdemeanor.” Lesser crimes were prosecuted as “trespasses” well into the sixteenth century, and only then were “trespasses” supplanted by [the term] “misdemeanors” as a category of ordinary crimes.... “High crimes and misdemeanors” were a category of political crimes against the state, whereas “misdemeanors” described criminal sanctions for private wrongs....

...for though “misdemeanor” entered into the [terminology of] ordinary criminal law, it did not become the criterion of “high misdemeanor” in the parliamentary law of impeachment. Nor did either [the terms] “high crimes” or “high misdemeanors” find their way into the general criminal law of England. As late as 1757 Blackstone could say that “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment....

In sum, “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear to be words of art confined to impeachments, without roots in the ordinary criminal law and which, so far as I could discover, had no relation to whether an indictment would lie in the particular circumstance.</blockquote>

“Contemporaneous with the drafting and adopting of our own Constitution was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in Great Britain. Hastings resigned the governor-generalship of India before he left India in February 1785, 2 years before articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Commons for his conduct in India.” - Govinfo.gov

Certainly, it was believed, “attempts to subvert the Constitution” ought to be impeachable if anything can be! Hastings was not guilty of treason and yet was justifiably impeached, and likewise American officials ought not escape impeachment just because their destruction of freedom lacks the intent that is an element of “treason”.

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about maybe should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

====How can a judge violate the Constitution? Judges ARE the Constitution!====

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is ''possible for'' a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

==Public Hearings==

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

==The Two-Thirds Majority==

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T05:35:20Z

DaveLeach: /* 2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

====1. Consensus of the Supreme Court:====

The Supreme Court said the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.

[https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/090b9509-588e-4de2-beac-b6bc47480980?j=eyJ1IjoibnZkM3kifQ.HLEy01XSAsjh7U0boWW6-uXA2Z1s-DcEoJ2RiyGU3Wk Nixon v. United States], 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

====2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions====

The plain words of the federal and state constitutions place no such limits on impeachments. The Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, and that to do so is impeachable, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S. Constitution, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not originally defined as violations of criminal law but to political crimes, which means outrageous rulings were the primary originally intended target of impeachments. a fact usually left out of discussions today.

Justice Story, author of "Commentaries on the Constitution" (1833), wrote that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”

Blackstone wrote in 1757, “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment...."

The phrase “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, a ground of impeachment listed in the Constitution, has nothing to do with the same words as used in criminal court today, and really there is no simple definition. They are political crimes.

<blockquote>"...whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; . . . whatever . . .[the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office." - President Gerald Ford, Speaker of the House who became president after President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were removed from office</blockquote>

Dennis Owens, director of the Notre Dame Law School Legislative Research Service and Editor in Chief, wrote "High Crimes and Misdemeanors: the Definitions of an Impeachable Offense", as President Nixon was being impeached. He wrote that Justice Joseph Story said the point of impeachment is not about punishing the offender. It’s about protecting the nation from gross official harm, whether from incompetence or intentional malice. So surely that CAN mean anything alarming enough to, as President Ford said, secure the votes of half the House and two thirds of the Senate.

<blockquote>Justice Story noted that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”
....in no sense was a criminal offense required. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanor” is not derived from the criminal law. It is parliamentary in origin. Thus, Commons impeached government officials for procuring offices for persons unfit and unworthy for them, neglecting to safeguard the seas as a Great Admiral was required, putting a seal on an ignominious treaty, misleading the sovereign. These charges bear out Story's commentary.

....At the time when the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is first met in the proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk in 1388, there was in fact no such crime as a “misdemeanor.” Lesser crimes were prosecuted as “trespasses” well into the sixteenth century, and only then were “trespasses” supplanted by [the term] “misdemeanors” as a category of ordinary crimes.... “High crimes and misdemeanors” were a category of political crimes against the state, whereas “misdemeanors” described criminal sanctions for private wrongs....

...for though “misdemeanor” entered into the [terminology of] ordinary criminal law, it did not become the criterion of “high misdemeanor” in the parliamentary law of impeachment. Nor did either [the terms] “high crimes” or “high misdemeanors” find their way into the general criminal law of England. As late as 1757 Blackstone could say that “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment....

In sum, “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear to be words of art confined to impeachments, without roots in the ordinary criminal law and which, so far as I could discover, had no relation to whether an indictment would lie in the particular circumstance.</blockquote>

“Contemporaneous with the drafting and adopting of our own Constitution was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in Great Britain. Hastings resigned the governor-generalship of India before he left India in February 1785, 2 years before articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Commons for his conduct in India.” - Govinfo.gov

Certainly, it was believed, “attempts to subvert the Constitution” ought to be impeachable if anything can be! Hastings was not guilty of treason and yet was justifiably impeached, and likewise American officials ought not escape impeachment just because their destruction of freedom lacks the intent that is an element of “treason”.

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about maybe should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

====How can a judge violate the Constitution? Judges ARE the Constitution!====

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is ''possible for'' a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T05:25:58Z

DaveLeach: /* 2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

====1. Consensus of the Supreme Court:====

The Supreme Court said the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.

[https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/090b9509-588e-4de2-beac-b6bc47480980?j=eyJ1IjoibnZkM3kifQ.HLEy01XSAsjh7U0boWW6-uXA2Z1s-DcEoJ2RiyGU3Wk Nixon v. United States], 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

====2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions====

The plain words of the federal and state constitutions place no such limits on impeachments. The Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, and that to do so is impeachable, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S. Constitution, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not originally defined as violations of criminal law but to political crimes, which means outrageous rulings were the primary originally intended target of impeachments. a fact usually left out of discussions today.

Justice Story, author of "Commentaries on the Constitution" (1833), wrote that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”

Blackstone wrote in 1757, “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment...."

The phrase “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, a ground of impeachment listed in the Constitution, has nothing to do with the same words as used in criminal court today, and really there is no simple definition. They are political crimes.

<blockquote>"...whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; . . . whatever . . .[the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office." - President Gerald Ford, Speaker of the House who became president after President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were removed from office</blockquote>

Dennis Owens, director of the Notre Dame Law School Legislative Research Service and Editor in Chief, wrote "High Crimes and Misdemeanors: the Definitions of an Impeachable Offense", as President Nixon was being impeached. He wrote that Justice Joseph Story said the point of impeachment is not about punishing the offender. It’s about protecting the nation from gross official harm, whether from incompetence or intentional malice. So surely that CAN mean anything alarming enough to, as President Ford said, secure the votes of half the House and two thirds of the Senate.

<blockquote>Justice Story noted that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”
....in no sense was a criminal offense required. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanor” is not derived from the criminal law. It is parliamentary in origin. Thus, Commons impeached government officials for procuring offices for persons unfit and unworthy for them, neglecting to safeguard the seas as a Great Admiral was required, putting a seal on an ignominious treaty, misleading the sovereign. These charges bear out Story's commentary.

....At the time when the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is first met in the proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk in 1388, there was in fact no such crime as a “misdemeanor.” Lesser crimes were prosecuted as “trespasses” well into the sixteenth century, and only then were “trespasses” supplanted by [the term] “misdemeanors” as a category of ordinary crimes.... “High crimes and misdemeanors” were a category of political crimes against the state, whereas “misdemeanors” described criminal sanctions for private wrongs....

...for though “misdemeanor” entered into the [terminology of] ordinary criminal law, it did not become the criterion of “high misdemeanor” in the parliamentary law of impeachment. Nor did either [the terms] “high crimes” or “high misdemeanors” find their way into the general criminal law of England. As late as 1757 Blackstone could say that “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment....

In sum, “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear to be words of art confined to impeachments, without roots in the ordinary criminal law and which, so far as I could discover, had no relation to whether an indictment would lie in the particular circumstance.</blockquote>

In the debate of the Federal Convention on the 20th of July, 1787, Col. George Mason of Virginia, known as the Father of the Bill of Rights argued:
“No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above justice? Above all, shall that man be above it who can commit the extensive injustice? When great crimes [are] committed, [I am] for punishing the principal as well as the coadjutors
... Shall the man who has practiced corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt?”
Impeachment was provided for by a vote of 8-2, but the impeachable offenses were redefined. Treason and bribery were grounds agreed to by all parties. Edmund Randolph suggested adding "abusing his power. ' Col. Mason again spoke:
“Treason as defined in the Constitution, will not reach many great dangerous offenses. (Hastings is not guilty of treason.) Attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be treason as above defined.”

Owens’ footnote supplies the sentence in parentheses, and the explanation that “Contemporaneous with the drafting and adopting of our own Constitution was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in Great Britain. Hastings resigned the governor-generalship of India before he left India in February 1785, 2 years before articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Commons for his conduct in India.” - Govinfo.gov
Mason apparently meant that certainly “attempts to subvert the Constitution” ought to be impeachable if anything can be! Hastings was not guilty of treason and yet was justifiably impeached, and likewise American officials ought not escape impeachment just because their destruction of freedom lacks the intent that is an element of “treason”. So Mason was concerned about loading up the list of impeachable offenses with weak or ambiguous phrases like “abusing his power” or “malpractice and neglect of duty”.
Here is the rest of that 1787 discussion:

He [Mason] moved to insert "or maladministration" after the word "bribery." Madison countered that "so vague a term will be equivalent to tenure during the pleasure of the Senate." Mason withdrew the motion and substituted "high crimes and misdemeanors," borrowing from the English Parliamentary history that he knew so well. Use of this language implied a carryover of the English concepts of the non-criminal nature of the offenses required, the requirement of graveness and seriousness of the offense, and the political nature of the process. The phrase was adopted without further debate.
House Comm. on the Judiciary, Impeachment, Selected Materials, H.R. Doc. No. 93-7, 93rd Congress, 1st Sess. 3 (1973) (citing 2 Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787). at 40 (citing 3 Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives, Chapter LXIII).

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T05:16:55Z

DaveLeach: /* 2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

====1. Consensus of the Supreme Court:====

The Supreme Court said the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.

[https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/090b9509-588e-4de2-beac-b6bc47480980?j=eyJ1IjoibnZkM3kifQ.HLEy01XSAsjh7U0boWW6-uXA2Z1s-DcEoJ2RiyGU3Wk Nixon v. United States], 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

====2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions====

The plain words of the federal and state constitutions place no such limits on impeachments. The Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, and that to do so is impeachable, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S. Constitution, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not originally defined as violations of criminal law but to political crimes, which means outrageous rulings were the primary originally intended target of impeachments. a fact usually left out of discussions today.

Justice Story, author of "Commentaries on the Constitution" (1833), wrote that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”

Blackstone wrote in 1757, “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment...."

The phrase “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, a ground of impeachment listed in the Constitution, has nothing to do with the same words as used in criminal court today, and really there is no simple definition. They are political crimes.

<blockquote>"...whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; . . . whatever . . .[the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office." - President Gerald Ford, Speaker of the House who became president after President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were removed from office</blockquote>

Owens wrote as the impeachment of President Richard Nixon was on its way. Owens quotes President Ford as saying the ground of impeachment is

Owens comments, “Few, if any, scholars would concur with this broadest of ‘broad’ definitions.” But I found nothing in Owens’ history specifying how much narrower the ground of impeachment was meant to be. “Bribery” is an objective criteria. “Treason” has objective elements. “High crimes and misdemeanors” is not so clear. It seems reasonable and no invitation at all to anarchy to consider as impeachable anything that alarms a majority of the House and two thirds of the Senate to vote for it.
This seems to be the point of Justice Joseph Story, whose quote leads off the excerpts below. He said the point of impeachment is not about punishing the offender. It’s about protecting the nation from gross official harm, whether from incompetence or intentional malice. So surely that CAN mean anything alarming enough to secure the votes of half the House and two thirds of the Senate.
Here are just a few excerpts from Owens’ history of the uses of the charge “high crimes and misdemeanors”:

Justice Story noted that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”
....in no sense was a criminal offense required. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanor” is not derived from the criminal law. It is parliamentary in origin. Thus, Commons impeached government officials for procuring offices for persons unfit and unworthy for them, neglecting to safeguard the seas as a Great Admiral was required, putting a seal on an ignominious treaty, misleading the sovereign. These charges bear out Story's commentary.
....At the time when the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is first met in the proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk in 1388, there was in fact no such crime as a “misdemeanor.” Lesser crimes were prosecuted as “trespasses” well into the sixteenth century, and only then were “trespasses” supplanted by “misdemeanors” as a category of ordinary crimes.... “High crimes and misdemeanors” were a category of political crimes against the state, whereas “misdemeanors” described criminal sanctions for private wrongs....
...for though “misdemeanor” entered into the ordinary criminal law, it did not become the criterion of “high misdemeanor” in the parliamentary law of impeachment. Nor did either “high crimes” or “high misdemeanors” find their way into the general criminal law of England. As late as 1757 Blackstone could say that “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment....
In sum, “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear to be words of art confined to impeachments, without roots in the ordinary criminal law and which, so far as I could discover, had no relation to whether an indictment would lie in the particular circumstance.

The source of these notes taken in 1787 is “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”: the Definitions of an Impeachable Offense 1974, By Dennis Owens, Director, Notre Dame Law School Legislative Research Service, Editor-in-Chief, 1 & 2 N.D. Journal of Legislation (1974 & 1975)

In the debate of the Federal Convention on the 20th of July, 1787, Col. George Mason of Virginia, known as the Father of the Bill of Rights argued:
“No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above justice? Above all, shall that man be above it who can commit the extensive injustice? When great crimes [are] committed, [I am] for punishing the principal as well as the coadjutors
... Shall the man who has practiced corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt?”
Impeachment was provided for by a vote of 8-2, but the impeachable offenses were redefined. Treason and bribery were grounds agreed to by all parties. Edmund Randolph suggested adding "abusing his power. ' Col. Mason again spoke:
“Treason as defined in the Constitution, will not reach many great dangerous offenses. (Hastings is not guilty of treason.) Attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be treason as above defined.”

Owens’ footnote supplies the sentence in parentheses, and the explanation that “Contemporaneous with the drafting and adopting of our own Constitution was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in Great Britain. Hastings resigned the governor-generalship of India before he left India in February 1785, 2 years before articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Commons for his conduct in India.” - Govinfo.gov
Mason apparently meant that certainly “attempts to subvert the Constitution” ought to be impeachable if anything can be! Hastings was not guilty of treason and yet was justifiably impeached, and likewise American officials ought not escape impeachment just because their destruction of freedom lacks the intent that is an element of “treason”. So Mason was concerned about loading up the list of impeachable offenses with weak or ambiguous phrases like “abusing his power” or “malpractice and neglect of duty”.
Here is the rest of that 1787 discussion:

He [Mason] moved to insert "or maladministration" after the word "bribery." Madison countered that "so vague a term will be equivalent to tenure during the pleasure of the Senate." Mason withdrew the motion and substituted "high crimes and misdemeanors," borrowing from the English Parliamentary history that he knew so well. Use of this language implied a carryover of the English concepts of the non-criminal nature of the offenses required, the requirement of graveness and seriousness of the offense, and the political nature of the process. The phrase was adopted without further debate.
House Comm. on the Judiciary, Impeachment, Selected Materials, H.R. Doc. No. 93-7, 93rd Congress, 1st Sess. 3 (1973) (citing 2 Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787). at 40 (citing 3 Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives, Chapter LXIII).

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T05:07:14Z

DaveLeach: /* 2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

====1. Consensus of the Supreme Court:====

The Supreme Court said the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.

[https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/090b9509-588e-4de2-beac-b6bc47480980?j=eyJ1IjoibnZkM3kifQ.HLEy01XSAsjh7U0boWW6-uXA2Z1s-DcEoJ2RiyGU3Wk Nixon v. United States], 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

====2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions====

The plain words of the federal and state constitutions place no such limits on impeachments. The Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, and that to do so is impeachable, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S. Constitution, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not originally defined as violations of criminal law but to political crimes, which means outrageous rulings were the primary originally intended target of impeachments. a fact usually left out of discussions today.

Justice Story, author of "Commentaries on the Constitution" (1833), wrote that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”

Blackstone wrote in 1757, “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment...."

The source of these notes taken in 1787 is “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”: the Definitions of an Impeachable Offense 1974, By Dennis Owens, Director, Notre Dame Law School Legislative Research Service, Editor-in-Chief, 1 & 2 N.D. Journal of Legislation (1974 & 1975)

In the debate of the Federal Convention on the 20th of July, 1787, Col. George Mason of Virginia, known as the Father of the Bill of Rights argued:
“No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above justice? Above all, shall that man be above it who can commit the extensive injustice? When great crimes [are] committed, [I am] for punishing the principal as well as the coadjutors
... Shall the man who has practiced corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt?”
Impeachment was provided for by a vote of 8-2, but the impeachable offenses were redefined. Treason and bribery were grounds agreed to by all parties. Edmund Randolph suggested adding "abusing his power. ' Col. Mason again spoke:
“Treason as defined in the Constitution, will not reach many great dangerous offenses. (Hastings is not guilty of treason.) Attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be treason as above defined.”

Owens’ footnote supplies the sentence in parentheses, and the explanation that “Contemporaneous with the drafting and adopting of our own Constitution was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in Great Britain. Hastings resigned the governor-generalship of India before he left India in February 1785, 2 years before articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Commons for his conduct in India.” - Govinfo.gov
Mason apparently meant that certainly “attempts to subvert the Constitution” ought to be impeachable if anything can be! Hastings was not guilty of treason and yet was justifiably impeached, and likewise American officials ought not escape impeachment just because their destruction of freedom lacks the intent that is an element of “treason”. So Mason was concerned about loading up the list of impeachable offenses with weak or ambiguous phrases like “abusing his power” or “malpractice and neglect of duty”.
Here is the rest of that 1787 discussion:

He [Mason] moved to insert "or maladministration" after the word "bribery." Madison countered that "so vague a term will be equivalent to tenure during the pleasure of the Senate." Mason withdrew the motion and substituted "high crimes and misdemeanors," borrowing from the English Parliamentary history that he knew so well. Use of this language implied a carryover of the English concepts of the non-criminal nature of the offenses required, the requirement of graveness and seriousness of the offense, and the political nature of the process. The phrase was adopted without further debate.
House Comm. on the Judiciary, Impeachment, Selected Materials, H.R. Doc. No. 93-7, 93rd Congress, 1st Sess. 3 (1973) (citing 2 Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787). at 40 (citing 3 Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives, Chapter LXIII).

“High Crimes and Misdemeanors” was the other ground of impeachment discussed by Owens. Here are a few excerpts proving that the phrase has nothing to do with the same words as used in criminal court, and really there is no simple definition. They are political crimes. Owens wrote as the impeachment of President Richard Nixon was on its way. Owens quotes President Ford as saying the ground of impeachment is

whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; . . . whatever . . .[the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.

Owens comments, “Few, if any, scholars would concur with this broadest of ‘broad’ definitions.” But I found nothing in Owens’ history specifying how much narrower the ground of impeachment was meant to be. “Bribery” is an objective criteria. “Treason” has objective elements. “High crimes and misdemeanors” is not so clear. It seems reasonable and no invitation at all to anarchy to consider as impeachable anything that alarms a majority of the House and two thirds of the Senate to vote for it.
This seems to be the point of Justice Joseph Story, whose quote leads off the excerpts below. He said the point of impeachment is not about punishing the offender. It’s about protecting the nation from gross official harm, whether from incompetence or intentional malice. So surely that CAN mean anything alarming enough to secure the votes of half the House and two thirds of the Senate.
Here are just a few excerpts from Owens’ history of the uses of the charge “high crimes and misdemeanors”:

Justice Story noted that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”
....in no sense was a criminal offense required. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanor” is not derived from the criminal law. It is parliamentary in origin. Thus, Commons impeached government officials for procuring offices for persons unfit and unworthy for them, neglecting to safeguard the seas as a Great Admiral was required, putting a seal on an ignominious treaty, misleading the sovereign. These charges bear out Story's commentary.
....At the time when the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is first met in the proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk in 1388, there was in fact no such crime as a “misdemeanor.” Lesser crimes were prosecuted as “trespasses” well into the sixteenth century, and only then were “trespasses” supplanted by “misdemeanors” as a category of ordinary crimes.... “High crimes and misdemeanors” were a category of political crimes against the state, whereas “misdemeanors” described criminal sanctions for private wrongs....
...for though “misdemeanor” entered into the ordinary criminal law, it did not become the criterion of “high misdemeanor” in the parliamentary law of impeachment. Nor did either “high crimes” or “high misdemeanors” find their way into the general criminal law of England. As late as 1757 Blackstone could say that “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment....
In sum, “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear to be words of art confined to impeachments, without roots in the ordinary criminal law and which, so far as I could discover, had no relation to whether an indictment would lie in the particular circumstance.

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T05:06:13Z

DaveLeach: /* 2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

====1. Consensus of the Supreme Court:====

The Supreme Court said the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.

[https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/090b9509-588e-4de2-beac-b6bc47480980?j=eyJ1IjoibnZkM3kifQ.HLEy01XSAsjh7U0boWW6-uXA2Z1s-DcEoJ2RiyGU3Wk Nixon v. United States], 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

====2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions====

The plain words of the federal and state constitutions place no such limits on impeachments. The Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, and that to do so is impeachable, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S. Constitution, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not originally defined as violations of criminal law but to political crimes, which means outrageous rulings were the primary originally intended target of impeachments. a fact usually left out of discussions today.

Justice Story, author of "Commentaries on the Constitution" (1833), wrote that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”

Blackstone wrote in 1757, “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration [poor performance] of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment...."

The source of these notes taken in 1787 is “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”: the Definitions of an Impeachable Offense 1974, By Dennis Owens, Director, Notre Dame Law School Legislative Research Service, Editor-in-Chief, 1 & 2 N.D. Journal of Legislation (1974 & 1975)

In the debate of the Federal Convention on the 20th of July, 1787, Col. George Mason of Virginia, known as the Father of the Bill of Rights argued:
“No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above justice? Above all, shall that man be above it who can commit the extensive injustice? When great crimes [are] committed, [I am] for punishing the principal as well as the coadjutors
... Shall the man who has practiced corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt?”
Impeachment was provided for by a vote of 8-2, but the impeachable offenses were redefined. Treason and bribery were grounds agreed to by all parties. Edmund Randolph suggested adding "abusing his power. ' Col. Mason again spoke:
“Treason as defined in the Constitution, will not reach many great dangerous offenses. (Hastings is not guilty of treason.) Attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be treason as above defined.”

Owens’ footnote supplies the sentence in parentheses, and the explanation that “Contemporaneous with the drafting and adopting of our own Constitution was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in Great Britain. Hastings resigned the governor-generalship of India before he left India in February 1785, 2 years before articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Commons for his conduct in India.” - Govinfo.gov
Mason apparently meant that certainly “attempts to subvert the Constitution” ought to be impeachable if anything can be! Hastings was not guilty of treason and yet was justifiably impeached, and likewise American officials ought not escape impeachment just because their destruction of freedom lacks the intent that is an element of “treason”. So Mason was concerned about loading up the list of impeachable offenses with weak or ambiguous phrases like “abusing his power” or “malpractice and neglect of duty”.
Here is the rest of that 1787 discussion:

He [Mason] moved to insert "or maladministration" after the word "bribery." Madison countered that "so vague a term will be equivalent to tenure during the pleasure of the Senate." Mason withdrew the motion and substituted "high crimes and misdemeanors," borrowing from the English Parliamentary history that he knew so well. Use of this language implied a carryover of the English concepts of the non-criminal nature of the offenses required, the requirement of graveness and seriousness of the offense, and the political nature of the process. The phrase was adopted without further debate.
House Comm. on the Judiciary, Impeachment, Selected Materials, H.R. Doc. No. 93-7, 93rd Congress, 1st Sess. 3 (1973) (citing 2 Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787). at 40 (citing 3 Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives, Chapter LXIII).

“High Crimes and Misdemeanors” was the other ground of impeachment discussed by Owens. Here are a few excerpts proving that the phrase has nothing to do with the same words as used in criminal court, and really there is no simple definition. They are political crimes. Owens wrote as the impeachment of President Richard Nixon was on its way. Owens quotes President Ford as saying the ground of impeachment is

whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; . . . whatever . . .[the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.

Owens comments, “Few, if any, scholars would concur with this broadest of ‘broad’ definitions.” But I found nothing in Owens’ history specifying how much narrower the ground of impeachment was meant to be. “Bribery” is an objective criteria. “Treason” has objective elements. “High crimes and misdemeanors” is not so clear. It seems reasonable and no invitation at all to anarchy to consider as impeachable anything that alarms a majority of the House and two thirds of the Senate to vote for it.
This seems to be the point of Justice Joseph Story, whose quote leads off the excerpts below. He said the point of impeachment is not about punishing the offender. It’s about protecting the nation from gross official harm, whether from incompetence or intentional malice. So surely that CAN mean anything alarming enough to secure the votes of half the House and two thirds of the Senate.
Here are just a few excerpts from Owens’ history of the uses of the charge “high crimes and misdemeanors”:

Justice Story noted that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”
....in no sense was a criminal offense required. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanor” is not derived from the criminal law. It is parliamentary in origin. Thus, Commons impeached government officials for procuring offices for persons unfit and unworthy for them, neglecting to safeguard the seas as a Great Admiral was required, putting a seal on an ignominious treaty, misleading the sovereign. These charges bear out Story's commentary.
....At the time when the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is first met in the proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk in 1388, there was in fact no such crime as a “misdemeanor.” Lesser crimes were prosecuted as “trespasses” well into the sixteenth century, and only then were “trespasses” supplanted by “misdemeanors” as a category of ordinary crimes.... “High crimes and misdemeanors” were a category of political crimes against the state, whereas “misdemeanors” described criminal sanctions for private wrongs....
...for though “misdemeanor” entered into the ordinary criminal law, it did not become the criterion of “high misdemeanor” in the parliamentary law of impeachment. Nor did either “high crimes” or “high misdemeanors” find their way into the general criminal law of England. As late as 1757 Blackstone could say that “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment....
In sum, “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear to be words of art confined to impeachments, without roots in the ordinary criminal law and which, so far as I could discover, had no relation to whether an indictment would lie in the particular circumstance.

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T05:01:27Z

DaveLeach: /* 6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

====1. Consensus of the Supreme Court:====

The Supreme Court said the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.

[https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/090b9509-588e-4de2-beac-b6bc47480980?j=eyJ1IjoibnZkM3kifQ.HLEy01XSAsjh7U0boWW6-uXA2Z1s-DcEoJ2RiyGU3Wk Nixon v. United States], 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

====2. The plain words of the federal and state constitutions====

The plain words of the federal and state constitutions place no such limits on impeachments. The Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, and that to do so is impeachable, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S. Constitution, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not originally defined as violations of criminal law but to political crimes, which means outrageous rulings were the primary originally intended target of impeachments. a fact usually left out of discussions today.

The source of these notes taken in 1787 is “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”: the Definitions of an Impeachable Offense 1974, By Dennis Owens, Director, Notre Dame Law School Legislative Research Service, Editor-in-Chief, 1 & 2 N.D. Journal of Legislation (1974 & 1975)

In the debate of the Federal Convention on the 20th of July, 1787, Col. George Mason of Virginia, known as the Father of the Bill of Rights argued:
“No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above justice? Above all, shall that man be above it who can commit the extensive injustice? When great crimes [are] committed, [I am] for punishing the principal as well as the coadjutors
... Shall the man who has practiced corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt?”
Impeachment was provided for by a vote of 8-2, but the impeachable offenses were redefined. Treason and bribery were grounds agreed to by all parties. Edmund Randolph suggested adding "abusing his power. ' Col. Mason again spoke:
“Treason as defined in the Constitution, will not reach many great dangerous offenses. (Hastings is not guilty of treason.) Attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be treason as above defined.”

Owens’ footnote supplies the sentence in parentheses, and the explanation that “Contemporaneous with the drafting and adopting of our own Constitution was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in Great Britain. Hastings resigned the governor-generalship of India before he left India in February 1785, 2 years before articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Commons for his conduct in India.” - Govinfo.gov
Mason apparently meant that certainly “attempts to subvert the Constitution” ought to be impeachable if anything can be! Hastings was not guilty of treason and yet was justifiably impeached, and likewise American officials ought not escape impeachment just because their destruction of freedom lacks the intent that is an element of “treason”. So Mason was concerned about loading up the list of impeachable offenses with weak or ambiguous phrases like “abusing his power” or “malpractice and neglect of duty”.
Here is the rest of that 1787 discussion:

He [Mason] moved to insert "or maladministration" after the word "bribery." Madison countered that "so vague a term will be equivalent to tenure during the pleasure of the Senate." Mason withdrew the motion and substituted "high crimes and misdemeanors," borrowing from the English Parliamentary history that he knew so well. Use of this language implied a carryover of the English concepts of the non-criminal nature of the offenses required, the requirement of graveness and seriousness of the offense, and the political nature of the process. The phrase was adopted without further debate.
House Comm. on the Judiciary, Impeachment, Selected Materials, H.R. Doc. No. 93-7, 93rd Congress, 1st Sess. 3 (1973) (citing 2 Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787). at 40 (citing 3 Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives, Chapter LXIII).

“High Crimes and Misdemeanors” was the other ground of impeachment discussed by Owens. Here are a few excerpts proving that the phrase has nothing to do with the same words as used in criminal court, and really there is no simple definition. They are political crimes. Owens wrote as the impeachment of President Richard Nixon was on its way. Owens quotes President Ford as saying the ground of impeachment is

whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; . . . whatever . . .[the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.

Owens comments, “Few, if any, scholars would concur with this broadest of ‘broad’ definitions.” But I found nothing in Owens’ history specifying how much narrower the ground of impeachment was meant to be. “Bribery” is an objective criteria. “Treason” has objective elements. “High crimes and misdemeanors” is not so clear. It seems reasonable and no invitation at all to anarchy to consider as impeachable anything that alarms a majority of the House and two thirds of the Senate to vote for it.
This seems to be the point of Justice Joseph Story, whose quote leads off the excerpts below. He said the point of impeachment is not about punishing the offender. It’s about protecting the nation from gross official harm, whether from incompetence or intentional malice. So surely that CAN mean anything alarming enough to secure the votes of half the House and two thirds of the Senate.
Here are just a few excerpts from Owens’ history of the uses of the charge “high crimes and misdemeanors”:

Justice Story noted that impeachment was “a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against [protect the nation from any further] gross official misdemeanors.”
....in no sense was a criminal offense required. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanor” is not derived from the criminal law. It is parliamentary in origin. Thus, Commons impeached government officials for procuring offices for persons unfit and unworthy for them, neglecting to safeguard the seas as a Great Admiral was required, putting a seal on an ignominious treaty, misleading the sovereign. These charges bear out Story's commentary.
....At the time when the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is first met in the proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk in 1388, there was in fact no such crime as a “misdemeanor.” Lesser crimes were prosecuted as “trespasses” well into the sixteenth century, and only then were “trespasses” supplanted by “misdemeanors” as a category of ordinary crimes.... “High crimes and misdemeanors” were a category of political crimes against the state, whereas “misdemeanors” described criminal sanctions for private wrongs....
...for though “misdemeanor” entered into the ordinary criminal law, it did not become the criterion of “high misdemeanor” in the parliamentary law of impeachment. Nor did either “high crimes” or “high misdemeanors” find their way into the general criminal law of England. As late as 1757 Blackstone could say that “the first and principal high misdemeanor is the mal-administration of such high officers, as are in the public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment....
In sum, “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear to be words of art confined to impeachments, without roots in the ordinary criminal law and which, so far as I could discover, had no relation to whether an indictment would lie in the particular circumstance.

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T04:49:26Z

DaveLeach: /* 6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

1. Consensus of the Supreme Court: the Constitution authorizes Congress to impeach for any issue serious enough to gather a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Congress has the last word, and courts have zero jurisdiction to question Congress’ judgment.
Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993) reviewed the impeachment of Judge Nixon. After he was convicted of taking a bribe to set a criminal free, he refused to resign his judgeship so he continued to draw his judicial salary while in jail! So Congress impeached him to cut off his salary, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court to reverse the impeachment so he could get back his salary! His defense was a tortured reading of a word in the Constitution that his Senate trial wasn’t a real trial because it began with a fact finding committee!

SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction to rule:

<blockquote>“The Political Question Doctrine [this is a question for politicians, not judges] is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

“Held: Nixon’s claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable.” [Courts can’t touch it.]

“...The Clause’s first sentence must...be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word ‘sole’ indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone.</blockquote>

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T04:43:41Z

DaveLeach: /* =6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability===

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T03:09:46Z

DaveLeach: /* Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling? */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

But those four judges of lower appellate courts – and the Brennan Center – in stating their unbelievable demand for exemption from accountability, ignored a ruling only four years earlier by the unanimous Supreme Court itself! Which is the first of...

===6 Reasons for rejecting the general demand of judges for exemption from accountability==

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T00:18:28Z

DaveLeach: /* Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling? */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?

Do you think acting beyond constitutional authority should be dismissed as “overreaching”? The Iowa Supreme Court in 2009 not only struck down centuries-old laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, which Western Civilization adopted directly from the Bible in which God has made the issue extremely clear, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize “marriages” between same sex couples, profoundly, dramatically and scandalously altering Iowa law. How much farther do you believe Iowans should let “overreaching” reach before we may count it as “legislating”, which Iowa’s Constitution calls “malfeasance in office”, which it says is impeachable?

Deuteronomy 23:17 <> Romans 1:24-27 <> Genesis 19:1-29 <> Leviticus 20:13 <> Judges 19:22 <> Isaiah 3:9 <> Jeremiah 6:15 <> 1 Kings 14:24 <> 1 Corinthians 6:9 <> 1 Timothy 1:10 <> Jude 1:7 </blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T00:10:10Z

DaveLeach:

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?</blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-27T00:03:17Z

DaveLeach: /* Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling? */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: not (1) when the ruling is an exercise of power assigned to the legislature by the Iowa Constitution or (2) when a ruling is, or results in, a violation of the Iowa or U.S. Constitution.'''

There is common sense behind reluctance to impeach even for the gravest of constitutional violations. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, (if that is really the case), is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

But if the ''plainest'' example of a “person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to” the judicial branch of government exercising “any function appertaining to” the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere “overreaching”, then it is impossible for any lesser judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

The Iowa Constitution, more clearly than the U.S. Constitution, authorizes impeachment when a judge exercises authority appertaining to the legislature. The oath taken by lawmakers to obey the Iowa Constitution ''presumes'' authority to impeach authorities who violate the Iowa Constitution. I would have thought.

When the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept “marriage” applications from sodomites, an order normally requiring legislation, we were told that a legislature must never impeach a judge for the content of his ruling. And that was over a ruling which was unconstitutional, if ever any ruling ever was: the Iowa Supreme Court ordered county clerks to accept marriage license applications for same sex “marriages” - an order not only flagrantly violating the Laws of God, but normally requiring legislation, which violates the Iowa Constitution!

Here is my question for anyone who thinks legislatures must never impeach judges over their rulings:

<blockquote>You say impeachment of judges for their rulings, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how subversive of the Constitution, is never a legal response. I want to understand your reasoning.

Doesn’t the Iowa Constitution provide legislatures the power to impeach judges on Constitutional grounds?

Isn’t “malfeasance of office” a constitutional ground for impeachment?

<blockquote>Sec. 20. ...judges of the supreme and district courts...shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor or malfeasance in office;...</blockquote>

Wouldn’t “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” qualify as “malfeasance of office”?

<blockquote>Article III Section 1. Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.</blockquote>

How else is “exercising the power appertaining to another branch of government” even possible, for a judge, other than through his rulings?

Then if you believe the legislature must never impeach a judge for his ruling, even for an unconstitutional ruling, do you believe no case of malfeasance of office or of exercising the authority of another branch may ever be brought? Do you believe these provisions in our Iowa Constitution have no effective meaning?</blockquote>

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-26T23:33:07Z

DaveLeach: /* Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings? */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

If ever there was a ruling crying out for impeachment, it was in 2005 and 2009, Iowa’s governor and legislative leaders quashed such talk. But it was hardly unanimous. When the Democrat-controlled Senate (led by Ron Gronstal) refused to take action on a constitutional amendment, voters removed three Supreme Court justices in 2010. Although that same year, a voter-led effort to hold a Constitutional Convention to restore Biblical marriage failed by 2-1. It took another six years to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Iowa remove Mike Gronstal].
Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,”''' said Brandstad, “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

Polk County Judge Robert Hanson set aside Iowa law limiting marriage licenses to heterosexual couples. Six sodomite couples were “married” during the short time he permitted before his decision was appealed, forcing a “stay” on his ruling.

Hanson’s ruling was affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court in ''Varnum v. Brien'' April 3, 2009.

Three of the six justices were removed from office the following November 2, 2010 in their retention elections. Voters gave their verdict on whether a judge ought to be removed for an unconstitutional ruling.

But the next of the seven judges facing a retention election, November 6, 2012, won his election; the fire had burned out of Iowa voters, or else voters had actually come to support sodomite “marriage” as Wikipedia alleges.

Concern about judges legislating survives, simmering below the surface, bubbling up publicly from time to time. A frustrated Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27, 2020 on the Jeff Angelo show, “Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?”

So, did Iowa decide not to impeach judges for their rulings?

It's is a hung jury. The battle isn’t over. Democrats support censoring God, and Republicans are little more willing to consult Scripture for its wisdom regarding their legislative goals. The devil has taken so much ground that many Republicans have retreated to defend the ever shrinking patch of ground that still honors God. Which God allows only because God doesn’t drag anyone into Heaven, or into blessings on earth. But for those still willing to march forward instead of backward,

<blockquote>A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; (Psalms 91:6-9 KJV)</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: It is constitutional to correct the part of a ruling that unconstitutionally legislates.''' Although ithas not been established definitively, whether a judge may be impeached over a ruling, much legal discussion avers that would be unethical, and there is no precedent of a successful impeachment over the content of a ruling. Most legal discussion is of the U.S. Constitution; the Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution.

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-26T23:26:09Z

DaveLeach: /* Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges: */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/ NRLC.org]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

'''Summary: "Overreaching" can only reach so far before it turns into full fledged unconstitutional legislating.''' That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

Iowans seriously considered impeaching judges for their rulings not so long ago. Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,” said Brandstad,''' “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

I respectfully disagree with Ambassador Branstad. When the Iowa Supreme Court not only struck down laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize "marriages" between same sex couples, that reaches beyond "overreaching". "Overreaching" implies a mild going-a-little-too-far out of one's proper jurisdiction.

But if the ''plainest'' example of a "person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to" the judicial branch of government exercising "any function appertaining to" the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere "overreaching", then it is impossible for any other judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27 on the Jeff Angelo show, "Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?"

<blockquote>Article 3 Section 1 of the Iowa Constitution says “Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others....”</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: It is constitutional to correct the part of a ruling that unconstitutionally legislates.''' Although ithas not been established definitively, whether a judge may be impeached over a ruling, much legal discussion avers that would be unethical, and there is no precedent of a successful impeachment over the content of a ruling. Most legal discussion is of the U.S. Constitution; the Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution.

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Judicial Accountability Act: How Legislatures can stop judges from legislating

2026-01-26T23:23:00Z

DaveLeach: /* The U.S. Supreme Court may decide whether district judges can suspend nationwide laws */

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=Summary: this bill restrains lawmaking judges in 5 ways:=

'''1. A single district judge can't overturn a law.

'''2. It takes 5 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court to overturn a law.

'''3. The Court has to rule in 3 months''' if the court blocks a new law from taking effect with a Temporary Restraining Order. If the court invalidates an existing law, the invalidation doesn't take effect for one year.

'''4. The legislature may compel designated justices to attend a public hearing to debate the constitutionality of the law''' within one year of such a ruling, by passing a resolution.

'''5. The legislature may overturn the invalidation, leaving the last word with incredibly well informed voters''' (through ordinary elections of lawmakers and retention of justices). The resolution overturning the invalidation would give reasons responsive to the reasoning of the judicial ruling.

=The Bill: Iowa SSB3181=

[https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=ssb3181 Track the bill's progress]

A BILL FOR

1 An Act regarding legislative oversight of supreme court

2 decisions, and including applicability provisions.

3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

==Introduction/Legislative Findings==

1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 602.1615 Legislative findings ——

2 challenges to the validity of a statute —— exclusive jurisdiction

3 —— public hearings —— legislative oversight.

4 '''1.''' The general assembly finds and declares all of the

5 following:

===If the legislature can even impeach, it can at least ask questions===

6 '''a.''' The power to impeach subsumes reasonable less severe

7 remedies.

===Lawmakers take an oath to uphold the Constitution too===

8 '''b.''' The intent of this section is to provide for a mechanism

9 in which to resolve disputes regarding the constitutionality of

10 laws between the courts and the legislature, both of which are

11 composed of constitutional scholars.

===Jurisdiction of courts is restricted by the legislature===

12 '''c.''' Article 5, section 4 of the Constitution of the State

13 of Iowa states that the supreme court is “a court for the

14 correction of errors at law, '''under such restriction as the

15 general assembly may, by law, prescribe''' . . .”.

===Judicial power to invalidate laws is not given by the Iowa Constitution===

16 '''d.''' Article 3, section 20 of the Constitution of the State

17 of Iowa gives the legislature the power to impeach judges for

18 “malfeasance in office”, which is generally defined to include

19 acting without authority and abusing power. The power to

20 impeach subsumes all lesser remedies.

21 '''e.''' The Constitution of the State of Iowa does not explicitly give the

22 courts of this state any power to invalidate laws enacted by

23 the legislature, and the authority required by logic to nullify a law it considers unconstitutional can only logically exist where the unconstitutionality of the law is beyond reasonable doubt, which cannot be the case when one or more of the dissents defends the constitutionality of the law. Neither does the Constitution authorize courts to require the legislature to enact different

24 laws, or to publish rulings that have the same effect as new

25 legislation. Article 3, section 1 of the Constitution of

26 the State of Iowa states: “The powers of the government of

27 Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments —— the

28 legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person

29 charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one

30 of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining

31 to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly

32 directed or permitted”.

===The Legislature must get involved when courts legislate unconstitutionally===

33 '''f.''' Although the courts of Iowa have usurped those powers

34 without constitutional authority, it has generally been done for reasons

35 which the general assembly respects. The general assembly

----

1 welcomes the expertise and guidance of the courts in evaluating

2 the constitutionality of its laws. But when the reasoning of

3 rulings which function as legislation appears to be not only

4 unsound, but unconstitutional, the general assembly has the

5 constitutional duty and authority to determine that judges and

6 justices have abused their power and exceeded their authority,

7 which are grounds for impeachment under the malfeasance in

8 office clause.

9 '''g.''' A remedy short of impeachment should advance wisdom,

10 build consensus, and educate voters so that informed voters

11 may hold both judges and legislators accountable. Article 1,

12 section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa states:

13 “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is

14 instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the

15 people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or

16 reform the same, whenever the public good may require it”.

==The Meat of the Bill: the Enforcement Section==

===Lower courts can't invalidate laws===

17 '''2.''' The supreme court shall have discretionary and exclusive

18 original jurisdiction over any challenge to any law. A

19 district court or the court of appeals shall not invalidate a

20 law on any grounds.

===Supreme Court must rule within 3 months, by supermajority===

21 '''3.''' A decision of the supreme court that invalidates

22 existing law or has the effect of creating new law shall not

23 have any effect unless agreed to by five or more of the seven

24 justices, and otherwise shall not have any effect for one

25 year. The supreme court shall also have the power to suspend

26 implementation of a new law provided the supreme court produces

27 an expedited ruling within three months of the law’s enactment.

===Public Hearing===

28 '''4. a.''' Within one year of the date a supreme court decision

29 is published that invalidates existing law or has the effect

30 of creating new law, the general assembly may, by resolution,

31 compel the attendance of specified justices to a public hearing

32 to discuss and debate the justification for the decision with

33 members of the general assembly. A public record of the

34 hearing shall be made.

===Impeachment grounds inquiry===

35 '''b.''' During or after the hearing, the general assembly shall

----

1 determine if grounds to begin impeachment exist as to any

2 of the justices present at the hearing for acting without

3 authority or malfeasance in office.

===Judges may improve their ruling===

4 '''c.''' Based on the results of a hearing commenced pursuant to

5 this subsection, a justice whose presence was required at the

6 hearing may change the justice’s vote or alter the justice’s

7 individual contribution to the decision.

===Legislature may overturn court invalidation===

8 '''5.''' A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 two-thirds of both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published. The resolution must

13 specify the basis for overturning the decision, including

14 its reasoning, not to be limited by court precedent that is

15 responsive to the supreme court’s initial published decision,

16 and must be documented by expert testimony and constitutional

17 authority.

===Legislature may add statement to the ruling===

18 '''6.''' The general assembly may issue its own statement to a

19 published supreme court decision that invalidates existing law

20 or has the effect of creating new law if done within one year of

21 the date the decision was published. The statement must regard

22 the constitutionality of the invalidated existing law or the

23 newly created law.

24 '''Sec. 2.''' APPLICABILITY. This Act applies to decisions

25 published by the supreme court on or after the effective date

26 of this act.

=FAQ's=

'''Questions and Answers'''

==The U.S. Supreme Court recently said federal district judges can’t suspend nationwide laws. Does that affect statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges?==

(In other words, has this problem already been solved?) ([ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/606/24a884], 606 U.S. 831 (2025 Trump v. CASA, Inc.)

Not directly, for three reasons. '''First''', ''Trump v. Casa'' applied to federal, not state courts. '''Second''', the ruling was about a nationwide injunction that blocked an executive order (that ended “birthright citizenship”), not the enforcement of a law. '''Third''', the reasoning for ending nationwide injunctions was that federal law had never authorized such expansive power in federal district judges. “The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet ''Congress has granted federal courts no such power''.” That reasoning, applied at the ''state'' level, would make the legitimacy of statewide injunctions by ''Iowa'' district judges depend on whether the ''Iowa'' legislature had ever authorized such expansive power.

But even when Supreme Court rulings aren’t treated as “binding” on state courts, their reasoning is classified as “persuasive”, to the extent the issues are similar. So maybe the Iowa Supreme Court will adopt the principle. But it would not end the need for adding the prohibition to law, since without the law, the Supreme Court could as easily restore statewide injunctions by Iowa judges.

===Examples of notorious statewide injunctions by Iowa district judges:===

'''Abortion'''. Polk County District Judge Celene Gogerty refused in 2023 to end a statewide injunction against Iowa’s six weeks abortion ban which had been issued by Judge Michael Huppert in 2018, even though the Supreme Court in 2022 had reversed the basis for Huppert’s 2018 injunction. See [https://www.kcci.com/article/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-iowa-blocked-fetal-heartbeat-bill/42222522 KCCI-TV]

A 3-3 tie in the Iowa Supreme Court left the injunction permanently blocked, [NRLC.org [https://nrlc.org/nrlnewstoday/ 2023/06/iowa-supreme-court-deadlocks-3-3-on-heartbeat-law-abortion-remains-legal-through-20-weeks/]

The outrageous scandal of that episode should not be minimized by observing only that it violates the Iowa Constitution through the “malfeasance in office” of acting beyond one’s authority, ignoring the limits to jurisdiction of Iowa law.

It violates the 14th Amendment Right to Life and Equal Protection of the Laws, which ''never'' says there are humans who are not “people”, a claim far enough removed from intelligent to qualify as willfully stupid, a claim never made by the Supreme Court but only imagined by lower courts, in defiance of every court-recognized finder of fact who took a position on “when life begins”, and especially in defiance of the Bible in Psalms 139:13-16, Isaiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-44, Ezekiel 16:21, 2 Kings 16:3, Jeremiah 32:35.

Believers of other religions might find this less shocking, but the Bible’s condemnation is significant because it is the only religious writing that has survived centuries of scientific scrutiny to which other religions don’t dare submit, and is the only source of concepts like “equal protection of the laws” (Exodus 12:49) that fuel Freedom.

And not just some accidental slip from sanity, Iowa judges committed, but a breach of the most heinous of crimes – murder, against the most innocent of victims – babies, a breach of “right and wrong” obvious enough to trouble any child.

'''Universal Mask Mandate'''. In the final days of the 2021 legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly passed HF 847, which prohibits school districts in Iowa from requiring everyone to wear masks in their schools. The [https://thearc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Iowa-Order-Granting-Temporary-Restraining-Order.pdf Temporary Restraining Order itself] blathered on from the start about all the “facts” about covid and masks, which were quite different from the facts as discerned by the legislature. Aren’t courts supposed to respect the Findings of Facts of legislatures?

See also the [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/22-3338/22-3338-2024-02-27.html appellate ruling] and [https://thearc.org/resource/the-arc-of-iowa-v-reynolds/ plaintiff ARC’s legal record]

September 21, 2021: Attorneys for Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a challenge to the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt on Sept. 13. The TRO prohibits the state from enforcing the new law signed by Reynolds in May that forbid schools and school districts from mandating the use of face masks to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Collective Bargaining. “The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiffs' claim that the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution, holding that the 2017 amendments withstood the constitutional challenges.” [https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/2019/17-1841.html AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 17-1841 , filed May 17, 2019]

'''From Trump v. Casa:'''

“Primary Holding: Universal injunctions, in which [federal] district courts assert the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts. ...The issuance of a universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power....The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. ” Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025)

The word “unconstitutional” is reserved in the ruling for defendant President Trump. The word is never contemplated as a thing possible for any judge. But any ruling that usurps powers beyond what is authorized by law is unconstitutional, obviously. Any judge violates the Constitution who acts beyond his lawful statutory authority. This myth that judges can never possibly be guilty of violating the Constitution pops up its slimy head in the boldfaced contradictory quotes above: “Congress has granted federal courts no such power”, yet universal injunctions only “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted...”!
So the question for Iowa is “has the Iowa legislature ever granted Iowa district courts any such power?” Well, not that I know of; but the reasoning of Trump v. Casa affirms that the power of district courts is limited to what Iowa law authorizes, which certainly affirms that a law explicitly depriving district courts of Statewide Injunction authority will be constitutional, and binding.
Even more binding: the Iowa Constitution explicitly limits the power of all Iowa courts to what Iowa law authorizes: Article V, Section 4 and 6 say “The supreme court” and “the district court shall...have jurisdiction...in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”

Nationwide injunctions ordered by a single district judge create judicial chaos where a single lower court judge can topple the work of a thousand other judges. "Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law," the Heritage Foundation observes, "one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere."

Heritage Foundation explains why that troubles the Supreme Court, with reasons which apply also to Iowa courts:

<blockquote>...universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues. When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.</blockquote>

Two cases five years earlier than Trump v Casa almost addressed “universal injunctions”. Trump v. Pennsylvania 19-454 was about the authority of agencies to expand the exemptions for Christian service providers from providing contraceptives as required in the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare. That case had raised the question:

<blockquote>“3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.” </blockquote>

However, the question was not focused on the legitimacy of all “nationwide preliminary injunctions”. So when the case was combined with ''Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion likewise addressed only the merits of that particular injunction – not the legitimacy of every injunction. He wrote:

<blockquote>“The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions....”</blockquote>

==Didn't Iowa decide recently not to impeach judges for their rulings?==

'''Summary: "Overreaching" can only reach so far before it turns into full fledged unconstitutional legislating.''' That is why remedies short of impeachment are necessary. Removal from office, for just one harmful ruling out of a long career of beneficial rulings, is pretty drastic; not to mention ineffective since it leaves the ruling in place that triggered the impeachment!

If an assembly line produces an occasional klunker amongst its generally great output, we keep the assembly line and discard the klunker; we don't keep the klunker and blow up the assembly line!

Iowans seriously considered impeaching judges for their rulings not so long ago. Highlights are discussed at the [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]:

<blockquote>A 2011 review by the National Center for State Courts’ ''Gavel to Gavel'' website also found numerous bills introduced in state legislatures that year to impeach judges and justices because of disagreement over specific rulings. Several of those introductions were part of a failed effort in Iowa to remove four Iowa Supreme Court Justices for their decision in a high-profile case about marriage rights for same-sex couples. The impeachment attempt garnered significant media attention, but also widespread condemnation – even from members of the sponsors’ own party. Iowa Governor-elect Terry Brandstad (R) [sic] said at the time that disagreement over a ruling did not constitute grounds for impeachment. '''“There’s a difference between malfeasance and over-reaching,” said Brandstad,''' “the Constitution says what the grounds for impeachment are. My reading is it’s not there.” Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R), whose chamber would have voted on the impeachment, sent the resolutions to languish in an inactive committee and said, “I disagree with this remedy,…I do not expect it to be debated on the floor of the House, and if it is, I will vote no.”</blockquote>

I respectfully disagree with Ambassador Branstad. When the Iowa Supreme Court not only struck down laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, but specifically ordered county clerks to solemnize "marriages" between same sex couples, that reaches beyond "overreaching". "Overreaching" implies a mild going-a-little-too-far out of one's proper jurisdiction.

But if the ''plainest'' example of a "person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to" the judicial branch of government exercising "any function appertaining to" the legislative branch can be dismissed as mere "overreaching", then it is impossible for any other judicial legislating to violate the Iowa Constitution. We might as well just give judges the password to the Iowa Code database and let them write whatever laws they please. As Rep. Matt Windschitl said January 27 on the Jeff Angelo show, "Do we really want judges deciding laws? If so, why do we even have a legislature?"

<blockquote>Article 3 Section 1 of the Iowa Constitution says “Departments of government. The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others....”</blockquote>

==Isn't it unconstitutional to impeach a judge for a ruling?==

'''Summary: It is constitutional to correct the part of a ruling that unconstitutionally legislates.''' Although ithas not been established definitively, whether a judge may be impeached over a ruling, much legal discussion avers that would be unethical, and there is no precedent of a successful impeachment over the content of a ruling. Most legal discussion is of the U.S. Constitution; the Iowa Constitution specifies that judges can't legislate, which is only implied in the U.S. Constitution.

<blockquote>The United States Constitution provides little guidance as to what offenses constitute grounds for the impeachment of federal judges...However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct. - [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

It is supposed that would be unconstitutional.

<blockquote>The Constitution does not “provide for resignation or impeachment whenever a judge makes a decision with which elected officials disagree.” said four judges when President Clinton and Senator Dole urged impeachment of a judge over his ruling on admissibility of evidence. “These attacks do a grave disservice to the principle of an independent judiciary and…mislead the public as to the role of judges in a constitutional democracy.” [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer Brennan Center]</blockquote>

Let's make a distinction glossed over by those four judges: between a ruling hated because it lets a criminal go free or jails the innocent, and a ruling which arouses concerns because it overturns laws or creates new laws, in a way that unconstitutionally supports crime. The case those four judges wrote about should have been off limits to lawmakers, as the judges said; but they generalized their criticism to the extent of dismissing concerns about truly unconstitutional rulings as being mere decisions "with which elected officials disagree". It is that degree of generalization that is "a grave disservice" by elevating "the principle of an independent judiciary" beyond the reach of the Constitution or of common sense.

What I have not found in law review articles is any proposed remedy for when a ruling itself is unconstitutional. I have not found it even acknowledged that it is possible for a ruling to be unconstitutional. As if to say "how could judges rule unconstitutionally? Judges ARE the constitution."

But it is judges themselves, in vigorous dissents, who stir public concern about the constitutionally of certain rulings. Judges who write dissents are as qualified as those in the majority, and their reasoning is often equally persuasive. When the public has a basis this solid for concern about the constitutionality of rulings, it is surely in the public interest, and not contrary to any known legal or constitutional principle, to hold a public hearing where those concerns can be addressed and hopefully resolved.

In fact, any time a law is overturned for being unconstitutional, but the ruling is flawed and a correct ruling would actually not find the law unconstitutional, then actually the ruling itself is unconstitutional because the ruling amounts to raw legislation. It is unconstitutional for courts to pass laws.

Let me emphasize this point. Any ruling that overturns a law is either correct because the law is in fact unconstitutional, or is itself unconstitutional because its reasoning or factual basis is flawed. Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too, and should not be unconstitutionally deprived of the power to enforce it when they see a violation.

If we may agree that it is at least theoretically possible for a ruling overturning a law to be unconstitutional, shall we insist the Constitution requires the legislature to honor every unconstitutional ruling?

Suppose there were a law against painting your house red, someone was prosecuted for painting his house red, and the court refused to convict because it is surely unconstitutional to outlaw painting your house red. Even without a formal nullification of the law, the law would be defacto nullified because prosecutors would know the court won't convict anybody for that crime. It may be reasoned that rulings overturning laws merely formalize this natural process.

Public hearings would bring healing to our national division over issues less clear than the right to paint your house red. A court could still declare a law unconstitutional with respect to the named parties to a case, but if the legislature perceived errors in the court's reasoning it could enter the discussion with its own reasoning, for the consideration of future courts.

As is pointed out below, the power this bill gives the legislature to overturn a judicial validation of its laws would not usurp judicial powers. It would not affect individuals who are actual parties named in the case. It would only affect that part of the ruling which wrongfully reaches into lawmaking, changing the laws which affect millions of other people who are not named in the case.

==Even if the Iowa Constitution doesn't give Iowa courts power to invalidate laws, doesn't the 14th Amendment empower courts to overturn laws which violate fundamental rights?==

'''(Summary: the Amendment authorizes legislatures, not courts, to define and enforce fundamental rights.)''' The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn state laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts.

But did the Amendment's framers fail to address what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights? Had the framers in 1868 forgotten so soon what the Supreme Court did in 1857 which tipped the country towards Civil War? (The Dred Scott decision which classified black human beings as "property".) Did the framers leave no remedy for us today, suffering under the 1973 decision responsible for 60 million murders?

Actually the Amendment offers us that solution too. The solution is buried in Section 5 which most people don't think about. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Notice that courts are not given authority to enforce the Fundamental Rights protected by the 14th Amendment, but rather, Congress.

How opposite that is to the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed, to even overturn the laws of Congress which the Court imagines violate fundamental rights! The 14th Amendment gives jurisdiction over state legislatures, not the U.S. Congress. The 14th Amendment gives that jurisdiction to Congress, not courts. Courts are made subject to Congress by the Amendment, and yet the Supreme Court has assumed Congress is made subject to courts! And not to the Supreme Court only but to any sympathetic district judge some New Rights advocate can locate.

But what is the practical meaning of authorizing Congress, not courts, to enforce fundamental rights? Obviously Congress can't enforce anything without courts. All legislatures can do is pass laws with penalties that apply to designated actions, but only courts can charge particular individuals, businesses, corporations, or states with violating those laws; only courts can apply penalties to people.

In fact the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from passing judgment on specific individuals or groups. "Bills of Attainder", is what the U.S. Constitution calls such actions.

So if legal practicality requires both Congress and courts, working together in their respective roles, to enforce the "equal protection of the laws" vision of the 14th Amendment, what is the significance of the fact that only Congress, and not courts, are authorized to enforce the Amendment?

The areas of dispute between courts and legislatures are (1) what rights are true protectable rights? (2) how should rights be balanced when certain rights of some infringe on certain other rights of others? and, to the shame of our nation that this can be in dispute among otherwise civilized people, (3) who is fully human and thus the recipient of any rights at all?

The power to enforce rights subsumes the power to define the scope of rights. Section 5 gives Congress, alone, that power. Congress is also authorized to pass laws defining offenses and requiring courts to apply and process them, so actually it is Congress alone which is authorized by the 14th Amendment to rule on whether an unborn baby is a fully human being, whether men have a constitutional right to marry each other, whether boys have a constitutional right to pretend they are girls and compete with girls in athletic events, etc. etc.

Was this a wise solution the Amendment's framers gave us? Have we been wiser to disregard it? If Congress is given the last word on our rights, will that be less hazardous to human rights than nine unelected judges deciding for us?

Congress is the branch of government most accountable to the people and consisting of a "Multitude of Counsellors", Proverbs 15:22. When fundamental human rights are threatened, the people in danger of losing them should not be denied a voice in their disposition.

So you are sitting there reading this and screaming, "but this measure is a STATE law about STATE courts. What does Section 5 of the 14th Amendment have to do with STATE laws and courts?"

So glad you asked.

The very concept of courts overturning laws was not developed in state courts, but was borrowed from federal precedents. Therefore the restrictions on that federal court power should guide and bind state courts.

==Why are existing laws treated differently than new laws?==

The difference is for the benefit of the public, so the laws governing them do not flip back and forth from being in effect. A ''new'' law – for example, the Heartbeat law – could be suspended until the suspension is overturned by the legislature. An ''existing'' law – for example our former marriage laws requiring spouses to be of the opposite sex – could not be suspended for one year, to give the legislature time to respond. No unusual back and forth.

==Could courts suspend a new law between its effective date and the court ruling?==

(If the court could not, the law would take effect until the ruling, then it would be suspended, but then the legislature might give it effect again.) The legal action a court takes to invalidate a law is an Injunction. The process here doesn't specify it, but would allow the normal process of allowing the courts to immediately suspend a new law with a TRO, Temporary Restraining Order, until their hearing, at which the temporary order could become permanent. In the case of an existing law, by contrast, allowing the court to immediately suspend the law, with the possibility of it going back into effect after the legislature acts, would subject the public to a law which is in effect, then suspended, then back into effect.

==What will be the effect of a 4-3 ruling that a law is unconstitutional?==

'''(Summary: no legal effect, but much political pressure)''' Although a 4-3 ruling would no longer have legal force, it would still have powerful political force. A ruling that a law is unconstitutional would be a public relations challenge for the legislature. The legislature would face pressure to refute the judges' claims point by point, or adjust the law voluntarily. A 4-3 ruling would not be powerless; and of course it would still be binding on the parties to the case. But an argument in defense of the legislature ignoring the challenge would be that after all, the justices themselves barely agree the law is unconstitutional.

==Would a ruling always trigger a public hearing?==

That decision is made independently of a decision to vote to override the court. "Within one year, the legislature MAY, by a resolution, compel the attendance of specified Iowa judges ...."

==Is one year for the legislature to act too long? Too short?==

One year from the court’s ruling is needed to process the ruling’s reasoning, to hold hearings which would require passage of a resolution by both chambers, and then to schedule a vote, which could be while the legislature is not in session. A year is needed.

On the other hand, requiring courts to act in 3 months is reasonable, considering this is not a brand new question before them that they have never heard of before. They have had all the years of public debate on the issue to think about the issue. Plus, courts are accustomed to ruling quickly when cases are required to be “expedited”.

==Would prolife laws do any better under this system?==

'''(Summary: Good news for Democrats!)''' No, at least not by much. Prolife laws would have a brighter future in Iowa courts, but in federal courts there would be no difference. That is, until such time as Congress adopts these reforms.

However, it might give prolife bills as much help as a “no right to abortion” state constitutional amendment would, although a different kind of help. And although there seems little concern that the Amendment might be overturned, this act would further reduce that possibility.

==Shouldn’t judges be immune from popular pressure? We don’t want our rights subject to a vote!==

Neither legislatures nor courts should have the last word over each other. We have seen what happens when legislatures had the last word, in the South, during the time of slavery. And we have seen what happens when courts had the last word, in 1857 and 1973; regarding slavery and abortion.

The Iowa constitution gives the last word to voters. Is that dangerous? America’s Founders talked about popular whims that could remove important protections over the weekend if the public could vote on individual issues continually. They set up 6 year terms for U.S. Senators and 4 year terms for presidents explicitly to shield our Rule of Law from whims the public might hold for only a month. Nor does this process give voters direct control over the outcome of a disputed law, but only equips them to evaluate the wisdom of their elected representatives and their judges, which is the same as our current system except this leaves voters much better informed.

The 14th Amendment expanded the power of courts to overturn laws which violate “fundamental rights”. It made slave-loving southern state legislatures accountable to courts. Unaddressed was what to do when it is courts which violate fundamental rights. This measure is an attempt to restore balance. It is interesting that the 14th Amendment actually leaves its own enforcement not to courts, but to Congress.

The “independence of the judiciary” from popular whims is well protected by lifetime tenure. This measure does not change that. It only defines a remedy for Iowans when judges rule lawlessly and unconstitutionally.

==Is a 2/3 majority requirement necessary? Shouldn't a simple majority of the legislature be enough to override courts?==

'''(Summary: practically & legally, certainly; politically, complicated)''' This may be the hardest detail to muster a quick opinion. There are strong arguments for either choice; perhaps there is even a third option: a 60% vote. As this bill proceeds, perhaps it should be expected that a consensus will form later requiring amendment of this detail. The current draft requires a 2/3 majority.

'''The Practical Argument:'''Currently, courts get away with a simple majority requirement (4-3) which faces zero accountability from anybody. This draft requires a 5-2 vote; another option is 6-1. Should the legislature face a similar hurdle? Several lawmakers believe a 2/3 requirement removes any practical hope of ever overturning a judicial invalidation of a law, because the Iowa legislature is incapable of agreeing by 2/3 that the sun is up. A 2/3 requirement would make restraint of lawmaking judges actually harder than passing a constitutional amendment!

But if we let the legislature overturn the court’s invalidation with a second simple majority, it could be objected that would be almost ridiculously easy for the legislature to gather together the same “yea” votes a second time (if an election doesn’t intervene). A 60% requirement could answer that concern.

However, that objection could also be met by pointing out that the ruling of the courts would give typically 60 pages of reasons the law should be overturned, which would put a lot of pressure on those “yea” votes to either eloquently and exhaustively justify their votes or vote “nay”. It would not be easy to secure a majority a second time under that pressure.

The public hearing option would put that 60 page ruling on a level playing field with reasoning from lawmakers. It would make both legislatures and courts accountable not only to each other, but to reason. It might even make lawmakers upset enough to reach a 2/3 agreement.

Voters, informed as has never before been possible about judges on the ballot, or about the legal skills of lawmakers, would have the last word.

'''The Political Argument:''' The public is not used to legislatures having ANY power to correct unconstitutional rulings. A 2/3 requirement would be less of a shock to tradition. Were this bill to pass into law with a 2/3 requirement, and lawmakers saw how unnecessary it was, lawmakers could ease the requirement in the future - since this does not require amending the constitution, which already grants more than this power, but requires only a law.

'''Amendment.''' Should it be decided that a simple majority of the legislature to overturn a court’s invalidation is sufficient, here is the simple change that could do it - simply strike out "two-thirds of" (or replace it with "six tenths of"):

8 A supreme court decision invalidating existing law or

9 having the effect of creating new law will not take effect if

10 <s>two-thirds of</s> both the senate and the house of representatives

11 approve a resolution to overturn the decision within one year

12 of the date the decision was published.

==Is it practically possible to require courts to add a statement from the legislature up to a year after its ruling?==

When the Supreme Court first publishes its ruling, that is not the final version that will be later given an official permanent citation in the Northwest Reporter series. (Their [https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/support/contact-us contact information]) Unpredictable delays are caused by litigants asking for rehearings, and courts taking time to respond. Even after that option is exhausted, court staff continue proofing their decisions, a process that can take months. [Iowa Supreme Court Clerk phone number: 348-4700] Northwest Reporter doesn’t officially publish a case, and give it a permanent citation, until a state supreme court notifies them that it is ready. That is why a new case has only an Iowa citation that does not list a page number or volume number, and doesn’t get a fancy N.W.2d permanent citation until much later.

Requiring the Court to leave the publication open for a year in case the legislature chooses to submit a statement would affect only the time the Court notifies Northwest Reporter, and it may not even affect that time at all.

The farther this bill gets, the more discussions there will be about it with the Iowa Bar Association and the Court itself. If delaying final publication that long is deemed unreasonable, an amendment could easily give the legislature an earlier deadline. It might also require the legislature to notify the court of an intent to exercise that option.

Of course, this entire final sentence of this bill is not critical to legislative correction of judicial overreach. It could be conceded if necessary to save the rest of the bill. But it is an appropriate correction of the current system.

==Will an expedited hearing that begins in the Supreme Court diminish the time needed by the litigants to fully present their claims?==

'''(Summary: anyone ready to block a law from taking effect is ready for court)''' A challenge to a new law means (and perhaps this bill could so specify, although I think it is already clearly implied) a challenge to a law that has not yet gone into effect, to keep it from going into effect (beginning with a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) the day it would go into effect).

In such a case the state itself will normally be the defendant, and the petitioner will be a well funded group that tried to kill the law in the legislature but failed. In that situation the petitioner will already be prepared legally, their arguments well honed through interaction with lawmakers. It is hard to imagine that any less prepared petitioner would be ready with a TRO to stop a law before it goes into effect.

Iowa court rules already require appellants to outline their issues in their initial notice of appeal, which is more pressure on individual defendants to prepare that far ahead, in proportion to their means, than challengers to a new law will face, who will be fully primed for a court battle before the law passes the first chamber.

Were the petitioner an individual seeking relief only for himself and not for anyone else affected by the law, courts have many tools for giving relief to individuals short of invalidating whole laws. Extenuating circumstances, interaction with other laws affecting the individual, necessity in order to avoid serious injury (Iowa 704) for example. The applicability of laws to individuals is the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, with which the legislative branch has no intent to interfere, any more than the judicial branch should interfere with the jurisdiction of the legislative branch to establish laws of general application.

After a law has already gone into effect, then there is no requirement to expedite. In fact, the decision to challenge a law could be made by the parties to the case, or by a judge, at any point during a years-long case: in pre-trial briefs, a district judge’s ruling, or during the appeal before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. With this bill the applicability of the law to the individual defendant could still be suspended, but the law itself, as applied to everyone else, would not be suspended until after the Supreme Court so rules and then only if the legislature does not block the suspension. The legislature’s year to respond would not begin with any ruling made before the Supreme Court’s supermajority ruling.

==Are there any U.S. Supreme Court precedents relevant to these half dozen powers?==

'''(Summary: making judges answer lawmakers' questions is a staple of confirmation hearings)''' These proposed powers are all completely unprecedented in law, although some of them have been discussed. Probably the one never before discussed is the idea of a public hearing.

Surely the prohibition of a district judge overturning a law, limiting that power to the state Supreme Court, and requiring a supermajority of the court to overturn, is well within the power given the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of courts.

===Public Hearings===

How about public hearings? Is there any legal or constitutional principle that shields judges from having to explain their rulings any better than they do in their written opinions? Is there something nefarious about requiring judges to answer questions?

Federal judges answer questions about their past rulings in confirmation hearings for appointments to higher courts. If U.S. Senators can require them to answer questions about their rulings years later, why can't state legislatures require their state judges to answer questions at the time? Judges justify not answering questions about future potential cases, that they may remain free to rule in view of facts and arguments they might not see until then, but there is no reason to shield judges from explaining their past cases.

Especially since the Public Hearings envisioned in this bill are not only to clarify whether a law ruled unconstitutional actually is unconstitutional. The second purpose of these Public Hearings is to investigate whether there are grounds for impeachment. Because if the legislature determines that the ruling of unconstitutionality is utterly lacking in merit, then judges who so ruled were legislating; they were acting without authority, exercising a power of a different branch of government than their own, which is malfeasance of office, an impeachable offense.

Obviously, in any impeachment trial, the judges would be required to answer questions. These public hearings a power subsumed under the power of impeachment; they are a reasonable, less severe remedy.

Certainly the very idea of communication between lawmakers and judges on a "level playing field" is unheard of. Unprecedented. Current communication, which tradition will be slow to reconsider, is somewhat like a parent trying to reason with a child who is as inarticulate as he is stubborn.

It is a special challenge for a lawyer representing the legislature to reason with a judge who gives only the scantest clues to what is on his mind before he rules, after which it is too late to respond to his errors. Does any Constitutional or legal principle require such a breakdown of communication? Does this ritual serve any good purpose?

Once President Washington asked SCOTUS for its advisory interpretation of a treaty. See a short history [https://www.quora.com/Can-Congress-ask-the-Supreme-Court-to-assess-the-constitutionality-of-a-proposed-law?share=1 here]. That is a different but only slightly different issue. The answers given by our Founders why that would be wrong, for judges to give advisory opinions to lawmakers so lawmakers don't have to spend years crafting laws which judges at the last minute decide to overturn, don't take into account activist judges who leave the future of legislation, and indeed the very future of human rights, very much in doubt.

The subject of the public hearing is whether the law really was unconstitutional. Because if it wasn't, then the judges plainly acted outside their authority, which is grounds for impeachment. But beyond being grounds for impeachment, an order given that is beyond one's authority to give is legally invalid. So surely the legislature has the authority to investigate whether an order was invalid, and upon establishing that it is, to reverse its effects.

Sheltering judges from interaction doesn't make them free of bias. In every other human interaction, accountability is the best way to cleanse a hard heart of bias.

===The Two-Thirds Majority===

The only thing remotely relevant to this 2/3 vs. simple majority requirement in American constitutional law that I can think of is that to ratify a constitutional amendment, Congress has to pass it by 2/3 before states pass it by 3/4. But this doesn't change the constitution; it only defines how the legislature is choosing to exercise authority already given by the Iowa Constitution.

If anything, there is a constitutional principle favoring the power of legislatures over courts, with respect to Fundamental Rights. The 14th Amendment is the part of the Constitution which courts have taken to give them jurisdiction over states who trample fundamental rights. But who did the 14th Amendment authorize to enforce its provisions? Not courts! Rather, Congress, according to Section 5 of the Amendment.

Yet here are examples of not just state laws, but even state constitutional amendments, which were overturned by courts for violating the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment:

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/277/ Cummings v. Missouri], 71 U.S. 277 (1867) a Missouri oath to hold office designed to keep out former confederate soldiers was ruled an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry Hollingsworth v. Perry], 570 U.S. 693 (2013) a California same sex marriage ban.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/620/ Romer v. Evans], 517 U.S. 620 (1996) a Colorado gay rights ban.

[https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/10-6273/10-6273-2012-01-10.pdf?ts=1411092428 Awad v. Ziriax], 10th Circuit, January 10, 2012 an Oklahoma ban of the use of Sharia Law in court.

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/189/475/ Giles v. Harris], 1903, and [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/193/146/ Giles v. Teasley], 1904, courts winked at disenfranchising Blacks, but explicitly accepted jurisdiction over state constitutions violating the 14th and 15th Amendments.

The authority to enforce the requirements of the 14th Amendment, given to Congress and not courts, gives Congress also the authority to define and apply fundamental rights, and for anyone seriously in doubt, to clarify who is a human being and therefore deserves to have his fundamental rights protected.

These are philosophical as well as legal questions which merit national discussion, but while courts are sheltered from having to talk to anybody the conversation has been one sided. America needs to open this up into what Proverbs 15:22 calls a "multitude of counsellors". It does not undermine respect for the judiciary to imagine judges are able to explain their reasoning.

==If Legislatures overturn court rulings, won't they exercise the authority of the judicial branch?==

'''(Summary: legislative action wouldn't affect litigants; only the part of the ruling that reaches wrongfully into legislating)''' No. On that future day when a legislature overturns judicial rulings, the legislature's action would not apply to the parties to the case, so the "separation of powers" aspect of the ruling is untouched. There are several reasons a court may exempt a litigant from the effects of a law, without invalidating the law for everyone else. The simple difference between courts and legislatures is that legislatures pass laws which apply to everybody, while courts apply those laws in specific cases, only to the parties to the case, guided by the special facts and circumstances of the case. The power given by this bill to legislatures to overturn rulings applies only to the part of the ruling where the court stepped outside its constitutional authority to nullify a law passed for the benefit of millions of others.

The purpose of the public hearing is only for the legislature to investigate whether their law was constitutional after all, and if so, to take back their constitutional authority to pass laws by their subsequent vote.

Lawmakers take oaths to defend the Constitution too. Courts cannot rob lawmakers of their power to obey the Constitution without violating the constitution themselves.

Perhaps that is the key principle declared implicitly by this bill: judges aren't the only branch of government authorized to understand and defend the Constitution. The other branches are too. That balance needs to be restored. The conversation needed needs to be among equals.

Psychology vs. the Bible

2025-04-21T04:42:32Z

DaveLeach: /* The Mental Health Industry Is Incentivized to Keep Patients Medicated: Cooper Davis */

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<blockquote>This article was started by [[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 20:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished from my writing with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.</blockquote>

A video version of this information, where a granddaughter played a Bible-quoting home schooler and I played a psychiatrist:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzz3VYgjOo Paychiatry Meets Match]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GTanxGqmmg Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 2]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZeqQD9vM8 Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 3]

'''Summary:''' Psychiatry is a direct enemy of Christianity, yet our government enforces it while it censors its critics. How is psychiatry an enemy of God?

'''Update: [ PsychologyToday.com] admits that Depression is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance, which is why antidepressant drugs "often" work no better than placebos.''' See excerpts from the Psychology Today article below.

'''(1) Religion vs. Relativism.''' Psychiatry will never tell a patient that his religion is what is making him crazy, because psychiatry sees all religions as alike. (Except for Biblical Christianity, which is a source of "guilt".) But God says only one religion is true, and living by it matters more than anything else. John 14:6.

'''(2) The Past.''' Psychiatry actually perpetuates guilt by dragging patients into their embarrassing past, for which patients are taught to blame others, rather than to be merciful and forgive. God tells us to stop wallowing in the past so you can concentrate on the present. Phillipians 3:13. Our time on earth is our last opportunity to do the work that lies here for us. Ecclesiastes 9:10.

'''(3) Guilt.''' God says our "conscience" protects us from error, so the worst thing we can do is stop listening to it; to "sear" it as "with a hot iron". 1 Timothy 4:2. Psychiatry says our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serve no purpose; there is nothing we need to change, but we just need to feel better about our actions: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty -- to stop listening to our conscience. The purpose of psychiatry is to "cure" our conscience.

'''(4) Pride.''' Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride -- "self esteem" -- the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem. What psychiatry calls "mental health", God calls an abomination. Proverbs 6:16. Being loved by God, or by anyone, cannot even be appreciated so long as one thinks "it is only what I deserve."

'''(5) Love.''' God defines love as sacrificing yourself for others. John 15:12-14. Psychiatry defines love as neglecting others and taking care of yourself. To psychiatry, "love" is a kind feeling which makes the lover feel good and "at peace" with the problems of others, without the necessity of actually having to try to personally solve them. (However, it is permissible to vote for other taxpayers to throw money at them. It is not important, in that case, whether said money actually solves anything.)

'''(6) Eternity.''' Psychiatry operates completely without reference to any existence beyond death. But God says only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth where nothing lasts. Luke 12:16-34. 1 Corinthians 15:12.

'''(7) Works v. Grace: Earning your own Healing.''' Psychology is a "religion of works". (In the King James Version, "works" is a term describing working/earning your own way, without God's help, into Heaven.) You can become mentally healthy through your own understanding that your conscience has nothing important to say, and that you can "love" others without "getting involved". You can even pay for your own therapy.

'''Bonus:''' Psychiatry does not inspire us to sacrificially love others as Jesus sacrificially loved us.

[[File: That_moment_when_you_try_to_explain_to_Jesus_how_hard_life_has_been_lately.jpg]]

(From the movie set of "The Passion". Mel Gibson, director, is discussing a scene with the actor playing Jesus.)

'''Introduction:''' This article will not persuade everybody who reads it to trust the Bible rather than Psychotherapy. But everyone who reads this will surely have to agree that the Bible, and Psychotherapy, are irreconcilable.

I hope that most, however, will also be persuaded that where the two differ, the Bible makes a LOT more sense.

In drawing these distinctions between Psychology and Scripture, I do not mean to suggest no psychotherapist can treat his patients by Scriptural principles. To the contrary, one of the features of psychotherapy, which argues against its status as a science, is the freedom of psychotherapists, once licensed, to make things up, or advocate personal convictions, and pass them off as representing the Science of Psychology even if it is 180 degrees away from the next psychotherapist down the street.

Rather, the Biblical views below, may well be presented in the course of the practice of certain psychotherapists; but they are not views learned in psychology classes. To the extent they are taught by psychotherapists, they are taught DESPITE their psychiatric training, certainly not because of it. The fact that psychotherapists routinely teach concepts they learned from common sense or from church helps account for what success they have.

Studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, made by psychiatrists themselves, by their own criteria, of whether they help their patients, show that they help some about as much as they harm others. The failure rate is very close to 50%. Actually, most such studies only compare people who receive communication with psychiatrists with those who receive no formal communication with anyone. In those handful of studies with a third control group in which patients communicate with some other group besides psychiatrists, those patients do best.

Psychiatrists know this. It is understandable why they don't care. But why do so many others rebel against these results?

The first reason is that a psychiatrist they have experience with may have dramatically helped them, perhaps because the psychiatrist relies not at all on his formal training, but on his personal wisdom, common sense, and the spirit of God in him.

The second reason, for some people, is that psychology is quite frankly their religion, and they will proclaim its virtues by faith, disregarding all contrary evidence, just as the buyers of "snake oil" home health products will share their vast claims with one another with no interest in scrutiny of their claims by any scientific process.

Here are a few fundamentals of psychiatry, compared with fundamentals of the Bible:

=1. Relativism=

What religion is "wrong enough" for a patient who practices it to be warned by a psychotherapist to leave it? Islam? Hardly. Cannibalism? We wish. If anything, Christian Fundamentalism acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God is an obstacle for psychotherapy. But ordinarily psychotherapy regards no religion, or doctrine, as the superior or inferior of any other.

(Except for Biblical Christianity, which is the cause of so much "guilt".)

Ditto for other standards of "right" and "wrong". Admittedly a staple of psychotherapy is its authority to label some people as "sick" and in need of treatment. This implies some standard at least of what is "mentally healthy". But where is there any standard even of what behavior constitutes "mental health", other than some mushy consensus voted upon by the American Psychiatric Association? The APA voted in the early '70's to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. 58% voted to remove it. What changed the APA thinking? Could it have been the semi-violent disruptions of the APA convention, two conventions in a row, by the sodomites, just before their vote? But it isn't just the APA that votes on who is mentally ill: the U.S. Supreme Court does too! In Powell v. Texas, the Court voted 5-4 to classify alcoholism as a "disease". In 1962 it had classified drug addiction as a "disease". Is there any standard of "right and wrong" or "mental illness and mental health" more objective, within psychotherapy, than a vote which might change next year? No.

By contrast, God insists that only His religion will lead us to sanity:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The Bible is God's Word and we may trust every word of it:

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

No one is excused for responsibility for evil because of "mental illness":

Jeremiah 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: ...

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What we today recognize as real mental illness (justifying being locked up) fits the Biblical descriptions of demon possession, for which one cure alone exists: the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one Treatment generally denied those who most desperately need it.

Act 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12 ...and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.... 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.

=2. The Past: Doorway to Healing=

Guilt is actually perpetuated by psychiatrists as they drag patients through their embarrassing pasts, for which they are taught to blame others. Psychotherapists deal much more with the past than other people. The Past, that is, not as in the History of America, or preserving historical homes, but as in one's individual past problems, worst nightmares, childhood embarrassments, etc.

Admittedly, the ostensible purpose is to pull up these old memories so they can be patched up and put back so they can be forgotten, like pulling out an oil burning motor and giving it a valve job so it can be put back to do its jb without commanding our attention any more.

But more than in any other human activity, psychotherapists work at remembering old pains that otherwise would not even have been remembered, for the sake of then "healing" them.

By contrast, God wants us to "let sleeping dogs lie" (for those in need of an illustration of this analogy, once I was delivering literature door to door. I stepped up on a very cluttered porch and was just about to reach for the door, when I recognized, almost camouflaged among the clutter, an enormous, sleeping dog. I thought, "he's asleep. I think it is safe to reach just one more foot and I can leave my literature before he wakes, and then run." Well, about 6" later, he woke up, and he didn't like being wakened. He really didn't like seeing me there at all. I decided to run now, and think about the literature later.)

Philemon 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

=3. Guilt has no objective basis=

God says the worst thing we can do is deaden our conscience, because its purpose is to save us from terrible error. But psychiatry says the worst thing we can do is feel guilty. Our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serves no purpose, since there is nothing we need to change: we just need to feel better about what we do: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty. The goal of psychiatry is to "cure" conscience.

To a psychotherapist, guilt serves no useful purpose. His job is to remove it. It is not useful for identifying some failure, or evil, for which there is a penalty that must be paid. It is not necessary, in removing the guilt, to repent of anything, or to seek forgiveness; the only necessity is to stop FEELING guilty. The only necessity is to recognize, as the truth, that there is no good reason to feel guilty. Guilt is "poor mental health" which results less from what you might have done, than from what others may have done to intimidate you such as Bible-believing Christians who warned you to leave a life of Sin.

What you have done to hurt somebody else is a problem to be treated only insofar as religious myths have acted upon your cruelty to fill you with depression and guilt. Then only the depression and guilt must be treated so you no longer feel bad about having hurt others. If you have vanquished guilt by developing a heart of steel, incapable of love, then you have healed yourself. As long as you have no guilt or depression, you are "mentally healthy".

By contrast, the Bible teaches that we have a Conscience which we must heed; that all are guilty and that spiritual healing depends upon our acknowledging that reality; that we must repent of that which justifiably provokes our guilt; and that the cure for guilt is to realize guilt is our constant companion, but that God loves us despite our sins, and promises to help us grow above them, in the same sense that "mistakes" will always be with a musician, and ought always be acknowledged for the sake of avoiding them, but through continual practice we will grow so that despite them, we may produce Music.

The following passages show the nature of our "conscience": it is a way God (sometimes through angels?) speaks to us, and we must obey. There are limits to its usefulness in judging others. Our immature doctrines can cause us to misinterpret another saint's actions as endorsing what we think is wrong. The more we sin, the less clear conscience becomes.

John 8:9 And they which heard it, '''being convicted by their own conscience,''' went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

1 Timothy 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; '''having their conscience seared with a hot iron;'''

Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but '''even their mind and conscience is defiled.'''

Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also '''for conscience sake.'''

1 Corinthians 8:7 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and '''their conscience being weak is defiled.'''... 10 For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; ....12 But when ye sin so against the brethren, and '''wound their weak conscience''', ye sin against Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for '''why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?'''

Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God... 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

=4. Self esteem!=

Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride ("self esteem"), the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem! God says it is just the opposite: "pride" is possibly the greatest of sins, something which must be overcome and replaced with a consciousness of one's Love-refreshed guilt!

No wonder psychotherapy sees Bible-believing Christianity, with its proclamation of Sin and the Need for Repentance, as an obstacle to its healing methods, which must be neutralized.

(In fact, "love" cannot even be appreciated without consciousness of guilt. What makes "love" love is when it loves, not the deserving, but the undeserving anyway, DESPITE not being deserved. Thus one cannot appreciate being loved, as long as one thinks it is nothing special because "it is only what I deserve". Only with awareness of one's reason for guilt can one's own heart be moved by being loved despite one's faults.)

Proverbs 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look,...

Psalms 12:3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?

=5. Self Love=

"Love" is honored within the field of psychology, all right, but not Biblical love. Self-service is the goal of all therapy, through redefinition of "Love". "Love" is defined as a kind feeling, which is beneficial to feel because it makes one's self feel good. The warm, comfortable feeling makes one "at peace" with others' problems, without the necessity of actually having to personally get involved.

The Biblical definition of Love as self-sacrifice, for the benefit of another, is not positively attacked by psychology, but it is not in any sense positively affirmed, and "altruism" is cynically analyzed as having for its motivation the good feeling it gives the giver. Would "excessive altruism" be seen by psychologists as something to be treated? I don't know, but it is certainly called "fanaticism".

John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

=6. Eternity is Irrelevant=

In the world of Psychology, one's morals, one's relationships with others, one's goals and sources of pleasure and fulfillment, may all be legitimately evaluated without reference to any existence beyond death. In fact, no licensed Psychiatrist, except to the extent he goes beyond the principles represented by his license, will even DISCUSS the need to plan for eternity.

Christianity holds the opposite! Only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth, wherein nothing lasts!

Luke 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

=7. Earning Healing=

In the world of Psychology, there is no "penalty" that must be "paid" by others before you can be healed; there is no "penalty" so great that you cannot afford to pay it yourself. You can earn your own way in to health. The road to mental health is paved by understanding, by greater knowledge. You can even pay for the cost of your own therapy.

Psychology is the exception to the rule, "You get what you pay for."

Have you murdered someone? Raped someone? Psychology will not judge you a criminal, or even as having done "wrong", much less "wickedly", but, at worst, as "sick", merely in need of treatment. A psychiatrist may even be willing to testify that you should not be jailed as a criminal, but treated as a patient. Certainly there is nothing about things like committing abortion, divorce, sodomy, or viewing pornography, that would concern a psychotherapist, unless some other element were involved such as you feeling uncomfortable or guilty about it. And then the therapy would focus on removing the guilt, not on correcting the behavior. At best, you may be judged "mentally healthy" though you have ruined many lives. You do not need to "ask forgiveness" of anybody or of God to remain perfectly "healthy".

By contrast, Christianity teaches that, just as a baby cannot "earn" his food, clothing, and shelter but must rely for his very existence on the love of his parents, we cannot "earn" God's help or love (without which we cannot exist) because there is nothing we can do that will even slightly personally benefit God,

Psalm 50:7 ...am God, even thy God. ... 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. 10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: 15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

Even if there were any currency in which we might repay God, the cost would be staggering, because our hatred is so deep that loveing us has cost God dearly! Men hated God so deeply that they killed Him on the Cross; and our hatred is like theirs.

John 15:If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

"Grace" is one of Christianity's wonderful words. It means "gift". It means "charisma", that quality in someone that just draws others to him like flies to honey. It means "joy". Our salvation our deliverance from emptiness, depression, meaninglessness, lack of purpose, Hell cannot be accomplished by our own efforts alone; but by working with God. This point has confused people, so let me state it more carefully: our work, or our "works" as the KJV puts it, cannot "earn" us one drop of blood that Jesus shed for our salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

However, we must "work", as an aspect of our "Faith" our trust in God, Heaven's "therapist", to give us "counsel" for our own benefit, obedience to which will bless us..

James 2:What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

We must "work", not to "repay" or benefit God, but to benefit ourselves; this is God's requirement, not because God wants us to reward Him, but because God loves us and wants us to grow into Sons of God who will one day sit WITH HIM IN HIS THRONE! Try earning THAT!

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

=Psychiatry's Harms in the News=

==PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work==

What is more astounding than the research reported in the July 24, 2022 issue of [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain Psychology Today] is that '''Psychology Today admits it!''' And closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! Here are some unbelievable excerpts:

"First, you should realize that while antidepressants may work for you, they do not work for everybody, and we do not know how they work. Anyone who tells you differently is lying—to you or to themselves (or both).

"Second, if you hear a medical professional using the term “chemical imbalance” to explain depression, you are hearing a fictional narrative (or a sales pitch), not scientific fact. Look for better-quality care...."

"Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief....

"The causes of depression have been long debated, yet a common explanation holds that the culprit is “chemical imbalance” in the brain. This [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428540/#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20was%20approved%20by%20the,%2C%20%26%20Bymaster%2C%202005). notion] emerged, not coincidentally, in the late '80s with the introduction of Prozac—a drug that appeared to be helpful in treating depression by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin.

"Pushed [https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392 heavily] by the pharmaceutical industry, as well as reputable professional [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X#bib20 organizations] such as the American Psychiatric Association, this storyline has since become the [https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0735-7028.38.4.411 dominant narrative] with regard to depression, accepted by the majority of people in the U.S., and leading more and more people to think of their psychological [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X difficulties] in terms of chemical brain processes. Depression treatment, in turn, has leaned ever more heavily on antidepressant medications, widely touted as the first, and best, intervention approach.

"(The myth) provided clear answers for both physicians and their suffering patients—an elegant explanation of the symptoms and a readily available remedy in pill form; pharma companies made money." But it was soon discovered that the pills are "[https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-5341-3-14 less effective] than once hoped and advertised. About [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091023163346.htm half] of patients get no relief from these medications", and there are "distressing side effects".

"[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30385-3/fulltext [R]esearch] has shown that drug effects are often no better than those achieved via placebo....

'''"A 2010 [https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/318293 review] of the literature summarized: 'Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy'..."

They knew 12 years ago! Where have you heard this admitted?

Psychology Today continues, with the study that triggered this article: "A [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 recent] (2022) exhaustive 'umbrella review' (a review of meta-analyses and other reviews) of this diverse literature by Joanna Moncrieff of University College London and colleagues examined the accumulated evidence in all the above lines of inquiry. The conclusions are clear: 'The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.'”

Not that anyone is ready to stop worshipping at the First Church of Psychiatry. "Lead author Joanna Moncrieff [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080145.htm said]....'One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people's lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.'"

The Bible offers a solid understanding of "adverse life events" and how "all things work together for good for everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose." Romans 8:28, KJV, CEV translations

CONCLUDING COMMENTS: What is more astounding than the research is that Psychology Today admits it and closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! For decades the ability of psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs to treat depresion has been one of the strongest arguments in defense of psychiatry! This gives me hope that one day hospitals and doctors will finally admit that covid vaccines and masks don't work. This admission has seemed for years as likely as "when Hell freezes over". As hard to comprehend as the Bible verses saying even the Devil will one day bow his knee to Jesus!

Romans 14:11 It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.” 12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.…

Isaiah 45:22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.

Zephaniah 2:10 This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts. 11 The LORD will be terrifying to them when He starves all the gods of the earth. Then the nations of every shore will bow in worship to Him, each in its own place.

==ADHD is NOT biological & solvable with chemicals==

Excerpts from [[https://www.theblaze.com/news/scientists-who-suggested-adhd-has-biological-basis-recants-conclusion After long suggesting ADHD has biological basis, scientists now make stunning admission]] by Joseph Mackinnon, April 14, 2025

There was a damning admission in New York Times Magazine over the weekend that may inspire new doubts about the credibility of the so-called experts advising the masses on matters of health, namely that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may not have a basis in biology after all.

That admission was not volunteered from some activist or critic but rather by the Dutch neuroscientist who apparently misled the world into thinking "A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain."

In a piece titled "Have we been thinking about A.D.H.D. all wrong?" Paul Tough discussed the correlated explosion of ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions in the 1990s — a trend, he noted, that was accompanied by criticism from parents and others concerned about the apparent campaign to load kids with methylphenidate and amphetamines.

"You didn't have to be a Scientologist to acknowledge that there were some legitimate questions about A.D.H.D.," wrote Tough. "Despite Ritalin's rapid growth, no one knew exactly how the medication worked or whether it really was the best way to treat children's attention issues."

Parents were right to be concerned.

Ritalin, Adderall, and the other highly addictive stimulants foisted upon hard-to-control American youths have a variety of undesirable side effects, both immediate and long-term.

In the short term, they can cause side effects such as bladder pain, bloody urine, an irregular heartbeat and palpitations, diarrhea, headaches, joint pain, trouble sleeping, confusion, agitation, seizures, and vomiting. In the long term, these drugs can apparently impact growth, dopamine regulation, and memory formation and retention and cause elevated blood pressure, psychosis, and mood disorders.

Tough noted that the medical establishment, already bullish on the ADHD craze, seized upon the initial results of the [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/205525 Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study]]. The study, published in 1999, suggested that Ritalin was effective.

While the children in their MTA study reported improvements after 14 months of choking down stimulants, after 36 months, their advantage had effectively disappeared such that they were expressing the same supposed symptoms as the comparison group. Years later, the same test subjects turned out to be an inch shorter than their peers.

The [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778451 well-documented]] overdiagnosis and overtreatment of ADHD in children and adults is troubling on its face but far worse when considered in light of Sonuga-Barke's understanding that ADHD diagnoses are purely subjective and effectively unfalsifiable; Swanson's admission that ADHD treatment doesn't help in the long-run; and Hoogman's admission that there is not a biological signature for the supposed disorder.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh [[https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1911576444066480371 noted]] in response to the New York Times Magazine article, "ADHD is one of the greatest scams in modern history. Millions of kids have been given mind-altering drugs on the basis of a lie. Now after decades — and after shouting down and defaming those of us who knew better — they're finally starting to admit it. It's infuriating."

==The Decades of Evidence That SSRI Antidepressants Cause Mass Shootings==

[[https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/there-is-decades-of-evidence-that A Midwestern Doctor]] who remains anonymous in order to keep his license but whose CDC-challenging medical news has a robust following, asks, of Ritalin and its cousins, "How Dangerous Must a Drug Be Before it is Pulled from the Market?"

A Midwestern Doctor
Nov 04, 2023
Story at a Glance:

•SSRI antidepressants have a variety of horrendous side effects. These include sometimes causing the individual to become agitated, feeling they can’t be in their skin, turning psychotic, and occasionally becoming violently psychotic.

•During these psychoses, individuals can have out of body experiences where they commit lethal violence either to themselves or others.

•As lawsuits later showed, this violent behavior (and the frequent suicides that followed it) were observed throughout the SSRI clinical trials, but were covered up by the SSRI manufacturers and then the drug regulators (e.g., the FDA).

•Once the SSRIs entered the market, there has been a wave of SSRI suicides and unspeakable acts of violence.

•Sadly, the idea that SSRIs could cause any of this has always been viewed as a “conspiracy theory” or “mistaking correlation with causation” because very few are aware of the extensive evidence linking SSRIs to violent and psychotic behavior—despite it now being on the warning label of those drugs.

Most holistic doctors consider Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) anti-depressants to be one of most harmful mass-prescribed drugs on the market (it typically makes their top 5). However unlike the other drugs, which are just unsafe and ineffective, SSRIs also have a fairly unique problem—they can kill people who are not even taking the drugs.

==The Mental Health Industry Is Incentivized to Keep Patients Medicated: Cooper Davis==

[[https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/the-mental-health-industry-is-incentivized-to-keep-patients-medicated-cooper-davis-5776191?src_src=morningbriefnoe&src_cmp=mb-2025-01-29&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAcesncgEFxOHb7b8arW1YALFohVYdvuMcXyDeLdrK6XnQrN38Iw== EpochTV]] January 28, 2025 EXCERPTS

At a young age, Cooper Davis was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed a low dose of Ritalin, which helped his ability to focus but caused unwanted side effects. To counteract them, he was prescribed other medications. By age 30, Davis was dependent on six different psychiatric drugs at any given time, what’s commonly known in the mental health community as a “prescription cascade.”

But the trend line [for solving every problem with a pill] has only gone up, despite there’s been many, many years of admonitions and people from inside the industry, from inside regulatory agencies, coming out and saying, this ship is going in a direction that nobody, nobody imagines is a good place.

Over-medication is a term that I cringe a little bit at just because it implies that there’s a right amount of medication. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily even the case. Psychiatric iatrogenesis is a pretty clinical term. There are people who identify as being part of something called the prescribed harm community. Statistically, in terms of causes of preventable death, it’s quite high and that can be alarming.

The CDC’s numbers say one out of four adults, or maybe just under, is currently taking at least one psychiatric drug, and around 6 million kids. The only commonly prescribed psychiatric medication that I personally would consider to be simple would be a stimulant, like what’s prescribed for ADHD. So your Adderall and your Ritalin. But when it comes to antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, sleep drugs, and that, you know, there’s increasingly a lot of off-label use as well.

I was somebody who was diagnosed at one point with treatment-resistant attention deficit disorder. And essentially what that means is that no drug treatment is sufficient. The severity of my disease is so great that I resist treatments that otherwise work for other people. And it’s a very unique consumer product, right, where if it doesn’t work as promised, you blame the consumer.

[When I was 17.] Started on Ritalin, five milligrams in the morning before school, and then a booster dose, although after lunchtime.
And did it help? I went from being a C student to an A student overnight.

[Before I had to force] myself to write an email that feels so tedious, and thenI realize I’m not breathing. It is that painful for me to be bored. What the drug did is it took that away and it made basically anything I chose to focus on equally engaging. Everything felt like it was interesting to me. And so once I was able to direct that, I took great pleasure in directing it at the things that were supposed to do and that were necessary in order to achieve academically.

The drug is really active for the first two, three hours after you take it. You have that morning dose and you have like a lunchtime dose. But by three, four o‘clock, five o’clock in high school and in college, you’re done with class. You’re done with school for the day. Now you’re going to go socialize with your friends. At that time of day, the drug is now wearing off and I’m experiencing what is widely known as a crash. There’s a stimulant crash once it wears off.
There’s no reason the doctor would even talk about that at all. There are not a lot of quantifiables in there to build studies around to capture evidence or define this as a risk of any kind. Some of those undesired effects, you don’t even know what they are until you are quite a few years down the road. What happens is over time, the therapeutic effect that you’re looking for generally diminishes. And sometimes the non-therapeutic or undesired effects do not diminish.

Year after year, taking this every single day, my brain is quite used to having these chemicals present. It’s accommodating for their presence. And I start to become more and more anxious. My sleep is more and more disrupted. I’m already seeing a psychiatrist every month because I have to get my refills.

The psychiatrist says, how’s everything going? After a few appointments I responded to that question with, I’m still having trouble sleeping, I get really worked up and stressed out about A, B, and C. Then he says, it’s starting to affect your relationships, and it’s starting to affect your schoolwork. Why don’t we just try something you can take?

For me, that was a benzodiazepine called Ativan. And so that was my second drug. So I’m taking a stimulant and then to counteract and also kind of help with that come down as well, where you tend to get extra jittery. I’m taking a benzodiazepine. Valium is one, and Xanax is another benzodiazepine. For me, I started with Ativan.

So now, I’ve got something that kind of speeds me up and something that slows me down. I was prescribed benzodiazepine as needed, not to exceed two-a-day. I can take it when I feel I need it. So now I’m like, okay, well, I have this going on later. I know in an hour I have to be there, but I have this school work due at such and such a time.

Then from there it is called the prescription cascade. This is very common with antidepressants. You’re jumping around with different dosages, different stimulants, different benzodiazepines. Some doctors didn’t want me on benzodiazepines. They put me on gabapentinoids, which are similar but less addictive. You’re starting to have more trouble sleeping. Why don’t we add a sleep drug to the mix? Might as well. I’m already at the doctor’s office. I’m already at the pharmacy. Insurance makes this all sort of a negligible cost.

By the age of 30, at any given time, I’m on five or six different psychiatric drugs. I am also inconstant, unreliable, and I feel completely dependent on being able to use these drugs in order to fulfill the responsibilities and the roles of the life I created for myself. So this thing that the drugs enabled me to build, Whether it’s true or not, I now truly felt that the drugs also enabled me to keep it. Therefore, without them, I would not be able to kind of fulfill the promises that I had been able to make while taking these drugs.

It was clear to me and everyone around me, it was not helping me. I was not well. But at the same time, I felt like if I didn’t do it, I would not have everything that I had built and my identity as an adult person in the world. Age 17 to age 30 is when you figure out, hopefully, how you fit into society. For me, it was 100% predicated on access to all of these levers that I could push and pull. So I ended up coming off of all of them.

There were many crises. I had lost jobs. I had lost relationships. I had made bad decisions about where I would live or what, you know, make plans that I could not follow through on. I was disorganized. There were many crises along the road. When I would go to a prescriber and say, I think I want to find out who I would be off of all of these things. There was trepidation. They were not eager to scaffold that experience, to guide me through it, to get specific about how that might be done.

[It helped me get off all the drugs that] the stuff that I thought I needed to stay on the drugs in order to keep, it was already gone.

[My] Inner Compass Initiative was founded in 2017. Fundamentally, its mission statement is helping people make more informed choices about...coming off of these drugs. By the way, none of which are explicitly approved for long-term use. When the FDA is approving these drugs so that doctors can prescribe them, generally it’s on the basis of studies that run from six to eight weeks.

It is not hard to qualify for, you know, the DSM criteria for something if you walk into a psychiatrist’s office. [Then after years of addiction] People just cold turkey these drugs or their doctor takes them off over a month or two months, even though they’ve been taking it for a decade and a half. And then their life flies out of control and they think, geez, I’m a truly crazy person. Well, no, you’re drug injured.

If you are a 16-year-old girl, your boyfriend just broke up with you, you are so distraught, you can’t imagine living. You say, I want to die. The idea that the best expert in that scenario is a 65-year-old psychiatrist who went to Tufts University and can look at that girl and properly assess what she needs at that moment is kind of silly. Yet, in the narratives that we’re exposed to, there’s a sense of risk if you turn to any other expertise other than a clinical medical expert. These are very complicated problems and calling them medical problems does not make any sense. But this has become normal.

As soon as you say, I want to die, I want to kill myself, you’ve now not just triggered a set of policies depending on who hears it, if they’re a mandated reporter or whatever, policies that could trigger a response that can be really traumatic, more traumatic than the breakup, because now you’re a threat to yourself or others potentially, just like a category of person whose rights are not present anymore. The idea that this is a medical situation that requires medical expertise, and that is what is going to lead you out of this and lead you towards a sustainable, resilient persona that can handle these types of things. In a lot of ways, that is laughable. But if you can take the results of that teenage girl’s breakup and basically convert it into something that you can bill insurance for, then of course it’s going to be medicalized, right? And that common sense and that compassion and that care and that human to human connection, this is something that mental health care has a very hard time providing. Everything is transactional, everything is predicated on some kind of system.

[At our nonprofit] we’ve come up with a very straightforward form that people can fill out. It’s meant to capture what was going on in your life before you encountered the mental health industry. And this library will be just a searchable database like any other. We just want to become a conduit for layperson wisdom, layperson expertise, and the compassion we have for one another.

[https://www.theinnercompass.org/ Inner Compass Initiative]

=The Supreme Court Precedent calling psychotherapy Fake Science=

The Supreme Court [http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Junk%20Science%20Case.htm cited] a book by Karl Popper to explain its shift in its definition of an "expert witness". The book gives psychotherapy as an example of a pseudo-science, as it explains the difference between it and real science. This link is to my article summarizing the concepts of the book.

[http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Popper.htm Excerpts from Karl Popper's book]. The Court quoted this article by Karl Popper which explains why Psychotherapy is no more "scientific" than astrology, the race-hating theories of Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, or pagan myths.

[https://www.biri.org/pdf/articles/Psychiatry-False.pdf? Statements of top psychiatrists admitting that the various categories of "mental illness", each of which has drug companies scrambling to market to each category, have no objective tests to distinguish them from each other, or even to distinguish them from "normal". This article is by Jon Rappoport, whose website is NoMoreFakeNews.com.

Psychology vs. the Bible

2025-04-21T04:35:28Z

DaveLeach: /* 7. Earning Healing */

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<blockquote>This article was started by [[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 20:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished from my writing with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.</blockquote>

A video version of this information, where a granddaughter played a Bible-quoting home schooler and I played a psychiatrist:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzz3VYgjOo Paychiatry Meets Match]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GTanxGqmmg Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 2]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZeqQD9vM8 Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 3]

'''Summary:''' Psychiatry is a direct enemy of Christianity, yet our government enforces it while it censors its critics. How is psychiatry an enemy of God?

'''Update: [ PsychologyToday.com] admits that Depression is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance, which is why antidepressant drugs "often" work no better than placebos.''' See excerpts from the Psychology Today article below.

'''(1) Religion vs. Relativism.''' Psychiatry will never tell a patient that his religion is what is making him crazy, because psychiatry sees all religions as alike. (Except for Biblical Christianity, which is a source of "guilt".) But God says only one religion is true, and living by it matters more than anything else. John 14:6.

'''(2) The Past.''' Psychiatry actually perpetuates guilt by dragging patients into their embarrassing past, for which patients are taught to blame others, rather than to be merciful and forgive. God tells us to stop wallowing in the past so you can concentrate on the present. Phillipians 3:13. Our time on earth is our last opportunity to do the work that lies here for us. Ecclesiastes 9:10.

'''(3) Guilt.''' God says our "conscience" protects us from error, so the worst thing we can do is stop listening to it; to "sear" it as "with a hot iron". 1 Timothy 4:2. Psychiatry says our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serve no purpose; there is nothing we need to change, but we just need to feel better about our actions: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty -- to stop listening to our conscience. The purpose of psychiatry is to "cure" our conscience.

'''(4) Pride.''' Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride -- "self esteem" -- the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem. What psychiatry calls "mental health", God calls an abomination. Proverbs 6:16. Being loved by God, or by anyone, cannot even be appreciated so long as one thinks "it is only what I deserve."

'''(5) Love.''' God defines love as sacrificing yourself for others. John 15:12-14. Psychiatry defines love as neglecting others and taking care of yourself. To psychiatry, "love" is a kind feeling which makes the lover feel good and "at peace" with the problems of others, without the necessity of actually having to try to personally solve them. (However, it is permissible to vote for other taxpayers to throw money at them. It is not important, in that case, whether said money actually solves anything.)

'''(6) Eternity.''' Psychiatry operates completely without reference to any existence beyond death. But God says only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth where nothing lasts. Luke 12:16-34. 1 Corinthians 15:12.

'''(7) Works v. Grace: Earning your own Healing.''' Psychology is a "religion of works". (In the King James Version, "works" is a term describing working/earning your own way, without God's help, into Heaven.) You can become mentally healthy through your own understanding that your conscience has nothing important to say, and that you can "love" others without "getting involved". You can even pay for your own therapy.

'''Bonus:''' Psychiatry does not inspire us to sacrificially love others as Jesus sacrificially loved us.

[[File: That_moment_when_you_try_to_explain_to_Jesus_how_hard_life_has_been_lately.jpg]]

(From the movie set of "The Passion". Mel Gibson, director, is discussing a scene with the actor playing Jesus.)

'''Introduction:''' This article will not persuade everybody who reads it to trust the Bible rather than Psychotherapy. But everyone who reads this will surely have to agree that the Bible, and Psychotherapy, are irreconcilable.

I hope that most, however, will also be persuaded that where the two differ, the Bible makes a LOT more sense.

In drawing these distinctions between Psychology and Scripture, I do not mean to suggest no psychotherapist can treat his patients by Scriptural principles. To the contrary, one of the features of psychotherapy, which argues against its status as a science, is the freedom of psychotherapists, once licensed, to make things up, or advocate personal convictions, and pass them off as representing the Science of Psychology even if it is 180 degrees away from the next psychotherapist down the street.

Rather, the Biblical views below, may well be presented in the course of the practice of certain psychotherapists; but they are not views learned in psychology classes. To the extent they are taught by psychotherapists, they are taught DESPITE their psychiatric training, certainly not because of it. The fact that psychotherapists routinely teach concepts they learned from common sense or from church helps account for what success they have.

Studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, made by psychiatrists themselves, by their own criteria, of whether they help their patients, show that they help some about as much as they harm others. The failure rate is very close to 50%. Actually, most such studies only compare people who receive communication with psychiatrists with those who receive no formal communication with anyone. In those handful of studies with a third control group in which patients communicate with some other group besides psychiatrists, those patients do best.

Psychiatrists know this. It is understandable why they don't care. But why do so many others rebel against these results?

The first reason is that a psychiatrist they have experience with may have dramatically helped them, perhaps because the psychiatrist relies not at all on his formal training, but on his personal wisdom, common sense, and the spirit of God in him.

The second reason, for some people, is that psychology is quite frankly their religion, and they will proclaim its virtues by faith, disregarding all contrary evidence, just as the buyers of "snake oil" home health products will share their vast claims with one another with no interest in scrutiny of their claims by any scientific process.

Here are a few fundamentals of psychiatry, compared with fundamentals of the Bible:

=1. Relativism=

What religion is "wrong enough" for a patient who practices it to be warned by a psychotherapist to leave it? Islam? Hardly. Cannibalism? We wish. If anything, Christian Fundamentalism acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God is an obstacle for psychotherapy. But ordinarily psychotherapy regards no religion, or doctrine, as the superior or inferior of any other.

(Except for Biblical Christianity, which is the cause of so much "guilt".)

Ditto for other standards of "right" and "wrong". Admittedly a staple of psychotherapy is its authority to label some people as "sick" and in need of treatment. This implies some standard at least of what is "mentally healthy". But where is there any standard even of what behavior constitutes "mental health", other than some mushy consensus voted upon by the American Psychiatric Association? The APA voted in the early '70's to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. 58% voted to remove it. What changed the APA thinking? Could it have been the semi-violent disruptions of the APA convention, two conventions in a row, by the sodomites, just before their vote? But it isn't just the APA that votes on who is mentally ill: the U.S. Supreme Court does too! In Powell v. Texas, the Court voted 5-4 to classify alcoholism as a "disease". In 1962 it had classified drug addiction as a "disease". Is there any standard of "right and wrong" or "mental illness and mental health" more objective, within psychotherapy, than a vote which might change next year? No.

By contrast, God insists that only His religion will lead us to sanity:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The Bible is God's Word and we may trust every word of it:

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

No one is excused for responsibility for evil because of "mental illness":

Jeremiah 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: ...

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What we today recognize as real mental illness (justifying being locked up) fits the Biblical descriptions of demon possession, for which one cure alone exists: the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one Treatment generally denied those who most desperately need it.

Act 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12 ...and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.... 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.

=2. The Past: Doorway to Healing=

Guilt is actually perpetuated by psychiatrists as they drag patients through their embarrassing pasts, for which they are taught to blame others. Psychotherapists deal much more with the past than other people. The Past, that is, not as in the History of America, or preserving historical homes, but as in one's individual past problems, worst nightmares, childhood embarrassments, etc.

Admittedly, the ostensible purpose is to pull up these old memories so they can be patched up and put back so they can be forgotten, like pulling out an oil burning motor and giving it a valve job so it can be put back to do its jb without commanding our attention any more.

But more than in any other human activity, psychotherapists work at remembering old pains that otherwise would not even have been remembered, for the sake of then "healing" them.

By contrast, God wants us to "let sleeping dogs lie" (for those in need of an illustration of this analogy, once I was delivering literature door to door. I stepped up on a very cluttered porch and was just about to reach for the door, when I recognized, almost camouflaged among the clutter, an enormous, sleeping dog. I thought, "he's asleep. I think it is safe to reach just one more foot and I can leave my literature before he wakes, and then run." Well, about 6" later, he woke up, and he didn't like being wakened. He really didn't like seeing me there at all. I decided to run now, and think about the literature later.)

Philemon 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

=3. Guilt has no objective basis=

God says the worst thing we can do is deaden our conscience, because its purpose is to save us from terrible error. But psychiatry says the worst thing we can do is feel guilty. Our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serves no purpose, since there is nothing we need to change: we just need to feel better about what we do: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty. The goal of psychiatry is to "cure" conscience.

To a psychotherapist, guilt serves no useful purpose. His job is to remove it. It is not useful for identifying some failure, or evil, for which there is a penalty that must be paid. It is not necessary, in removing the guilt, to repent of anything, or to seek forgiveness; the only necessity is to stop FEELING guilty. The only necessity is to recognize, as the truth, that there is no good reason to feel guilty. Guilt is "poor mental health" which results less from what you might have done, than from what others may have done to intimidate you such as Bible-believing Christians who warned you to leave a life of Sin.

What you have done to hurt somebody else is a problem to be treated only insofar as religious myths have acted upon your cruelty to fill you with depression and guilt. Then only the depression and guilt must be treated so you no longer feel bad about having hurt others. If you have vanquished guilt by developing a heart of steel, incapable of love, then you have healed yourself. As long as you have no guilt or depression, you are "mentally healthy".

By contrast, the Bible teaches that we have a Conscience which we must heed; that all are guilty and that spiritual healing depends upon our acknowledging that reality; that we must repent of that which justifiably provokes our guilt; and that the cure for guilt is to realize guilt is our constant companion, but that God loves us despite our sins, and promises to help us grow above them, in the same sense that "mistakes" will always be with a musician, and ought always be acknowledged for the sake of avoiding them, but through continual practice we will grow so that despite them, we may produce Music.

The following passages show the nature of our "conscience": it is a way God (sometimes through angels?) speaks to us, and we must obey. There are limits to its usefulness in judging others. Our immature doctrines can cause us to misinterpret another saint's actions as endorsing what we think is wrong. The more we sin, the less clear conscience becomes.

John 8:9 And they which heard it, '''being convicted by their own conscience,''' went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

1 Timothy 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; '''having their conscience seared with a hot iron;'''

Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but '''even their mind and conscience is defiled.'''

Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also '''for conscience sake.'''

1 Corinthians 8:7 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and '''their conscience being weak is defiled.'''... 10 For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; ....12 But when ye sin so against the brethren, and '''wound their weak conscience''', ye sin against Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for '''why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?'''

Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God... 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

=4. Self esteem!=

Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride ("self esteem"), the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem! God says it is just the opposite: "pride" is possibly the greatest of sins, something which must be overcome and replaced with a consciousness of one's Love-refreshed guilt!

No wonder psychotherapy sees Bible-believing Christianity, with its proclamation of Sin and the Need for Repentance, as an obstacle to its healing methods, which must be neutralized.

(In fact, "love" cannot even be appreciated without consciousness of guilt. What makes "love" love is when it loves, not the deserving, but the undeserving anyway, DESPITE not being deserved. Thus one cannot appreciate being loved, as long as one thinks it is nothing special because "it is only what I deserve". Only with awareness of one's reason for guilt can one's own heart be moved by being loved despite one's faults.)

Proverbs 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look,...

Psalms 12:3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?

=5. Self Love=

"Love" is honored within the field of psychology, all right, but not Biblical love. Self-service is the goal of all therapy, through redefinition of "Love". "Love" is defined as a kind feeling, which is beneficial to feel because it makes one's self feel good. The warm, comfortable feeling makes one "at peace" with others' problems, without the necessity of actually having to personally get involved.

The Biblical definition of Love as self-sacrifice, for the benefit of another, is not positively attacked by psychology, but it is not in any sense positively affirmed, and "altruism" is cynically analyzed as having for its motivation the good feeling it gives the giver. Would "excessive altruism" be seen by psychologists as something to be treated? I don't know, but it is certainly called "fanaticism".

John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

=6. Eternity is Irrelevant=

In the world of Psychology, one's morals, one's relationships with others, one's goals and sources of pleasure and fulfillment, may all be legitimately evaluated without reference to any existence beyond death. In fact, no licensed Psychiatrist, except to the extent he goes beyond the principles represented by his license, will even DISCUSS the need to plan for eternity.

Christianity holds the opposite! Only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth, wherein nothing lasts!

Luke 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

=7. Earning Healing=

In the world of Psychology, there is no "penalty" that must be "paid" by others before you can be healed; there is no "penalty" so great that you cannot afford to pay it yourself. You can earn your own way in to health. The road to mental health is paved by understanding, by greater knowledge. You can even pay for the cost of your own therapy.

Psychology is the exception to the rule, "You get what you pay for."

Have you murdered someone? Raped someone? Psychology will not judge you a criminal, or even as having done "wrong", much less "wickedly", but, at worst, as "sick", merely in need of treatment. A psychiatrist may even be willing to testify that you should not be jailed as a criminal, but treated as a patient. Certainly there is nothing about things like committing abortion, divorce, sodomy, or viewing pornography, that would concern a psychotherapist, unless some other element were involved such as you feeling uncomfortable or guilty about it. And then the therapy would focus on removing the guilt, not on correcting the behavior. At best, you may be judged "mentally healthy" though you have ruined many lives. You do not need to "ask forgiveness" of anybody or of God to remain perfectly "healthy".

By contrast, Christianity teaches that, just as a baby cannot "earn" his food, clothing, and shelter but must rely for his very existence on the love of his parents, we cannot "earn" God's help or love (without which we cannot exist) because there is nothing we can do that will even slightly personally benefit God,

Psalm 50:7 ...am God, even thy God. ... 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. 10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: 15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

Even if there were any currency in which we might repay God, the cost would be staggering, because our hatred is so deep that loveing us has cost God dearly! Men hated God so deeply that they killed Him on the Cross; and our hatred is like theirs.

John 15:If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

"Grace" is one of Christianity's wonderful words. It means "gift". It means "charisma", that quality in someone that just draws others to him like flies to honey. It means "joy". Our salvation our deliverance from emptiness, depression, meaninglessness, lack of purpose, Hell cannot be accomplished by our own efforts alone; but by working with God. This point has confused people, so let me state it more carefully: our work, or our "works" as the KJV puts it, cannot "earn" us one drop of blood that Jesus shed for our salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

However, we must "work", as an aspect of our "Faith" our trust in God, Heaven's "therapist", to give us "counsel" for our own benefit, obedience to which will bless us..

James 2:What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

We must "work", not to "repay" or benefit God, but to benefit ourselves; this is God's requirement, not because God wants us to reward Him, but because God loves us and wants us to grow into Sons of God who will one day sit WITH HIM IN HIS THRONE! Try earning THAT!

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

=Psychiatry's Harms in the News=

==PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work==

What is more astounding than the research reported in the July 24, 2022 issue of [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain Psychology Today] is that '''Psychology Today admits it!''' And closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! Here are some unbelievable excerpts:

"First, you should realize that while antidepressants may work for you, they do not work for everybody, and we do not know how they work. Anyone who tells you differently is lying—to you or to themselves (or both).

"Second, if you hear a medical professional using the term “chemical imbalance” to explain depression, you are hearing a fictional narrative (or a sales pitch), not scientific fact. Look for better-quality care...."

"Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief....

"The causes of depression have been long debated, yet a common explanation holds that the culprit is “chemical imbalance” in the brain. This [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428540/#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20was%20approved%20by%20the,%2C%20%26%20Bymaster%2C%202005). notion] emerged, not coincidentally, in the late '80s with the introduction of Prozac—a drug that appeared to be helpful in treating depression by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin.

"Pushed [https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392 heavily] by the pharmaceutical industry, as well as reputable professional [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X#bib20 organizations] such as the American Psychiatric Association, this storyline has since become the [https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0735-7028.38.4.411 dominant narrative] with regard to depression, accepted by the majority of people in the U.S., and leading more and more people to think of their psychological [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X difficulties] in terms of chemical brain processes. Depression treatment, in turn, has leaned ever more heavily on antidepressant medications, widely touted as the first, and best, intervention approach.

"(The myth) provided clear answers for both physicians and their suffering patients—an elegant explanation of the symptoms and a readily available remedy in pill form; pharma companies made money." But it was soon discovered that the pills are "[https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-5341-3-14 less effective] than once hoped and advertised. About [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091023163346.htm half] of patients get no relief from these medications", and there are "distressing side effects".

"[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30385-3/fulltext [R]esearch] has shown that drug effects are often no better than those achieved via placebo....

'''"A 2010 [https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/318293 review] of the literature summarized: 'Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy'..."

They knew 12 years ago! Where have you heard this admitted?

Psychology Today continues, with the study that triggered this article: "A [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 recent] (2022) exhaustive 'umbrella review' (a review of meta-analyses and other reviews) of this diverse literature by Joanna Moncrieff of University College London and colleagues examined the accumulated evidence in all the above lines of inquiry. The conclusions are clear: 'The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.'”

Not that anyone is ready to stop worshipping at the First Church of Psychiatry. "Lead author Joanna Moncrieff [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080145.htm said]....'One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people's lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.'"

The Bible offers a solid understanding of "adverse life events" and how "all things work together for good for everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose." Romans 8:28, KJV, CEV translations

CONCLUDING COMMENTS: What is more astounding than the research is that Psychology Today admits it and closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! For decades the ability of psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs to treat depresion has been one of the strongest arguments in defense of psychiatry! This gives me hope that one day hospitals and doctors will finally admit that covid vaccines and masks don't work. This admission has seemed for years as likely as "when Hell freezes over". As hard to comprehend as the Bible verses saying even the Devil will one day bow his knee to Jesus!

Romans 14:11 It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.” 12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.…

Isaiah 45:22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.

Zephaniah 2:10 This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts. 11 The LORD will be terrifying to them when He starves all the gods of the earth. Then the nations of every shore will bow in worship to Him, each in its own place.

==ADHD is NOT biological & solvable with chemicals==

Excerpts from [[https://www.theblaze.com/news/scientists-who-suggested-adhd-has-biological-basis-recants-conclusion After long suggesting ADHD has biological basis, scientists now make stunning admission]] by Joseph Mackinnon, April 14, 2025

There was a damning admission in New York Times Magazine over the weekend that may inspire new doubts about the credibility of the so-called experts advising the masses on matters of health, namely that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may not have a basis in biology after all.

That admission was not volunteered from some activist or critic but rather by the Dutch neuroscientist who apparently misled the world into thinking "A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain."

In a piece titled "Have we been thinking about A.D.H.D. all wrong?" Paul Tough discussed the correlated explosion of ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions in the 1990s — a trend, he noted, that was accompanied by criticism from parents and others concerned about the apparent campaign to load kids with methylphenidate and amphetamines.

"You didn't have to be a Scientologist to acknowledge that there were some legitimate questions about A.D.H.D.," wrote Tough. "Despite Ritalin's rapid growth, no one knew exactly how the medication worked or whether it really was the best way to treat children's attention issues."

Parents were right to be concerned.

Ritalin, Adderall, and the other highly addictive stimulants foisted upon hard-to-control American youths have a variety of undesirable side effects, both immediate and long-term.

In the short term, they can cause side effects such as bladder pain, bloody urine, an irregular heartbeat and palpitations, diarrhea, headaches, joint pain, trouble sleeping, confusion, agitation, seizures, and vomiting. In the long term, these drugs can apparently impact growth, dopamine regulation, and memory formation and retention and cause elevated blood pressure, psychosis, and mood disorders.

Tough noted that the medical establishment, already bullish on the ADHD craze, seized upon the initial results of the [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/205525 Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study]]. The study, published in 1999, suggested that Ritalin was effective.

While the children in their MTA study reported improvements after 14 months of choking down stimulants, after 36 months, their advantage had effectively disappeared such that they were expressing the same supposed symptoms as the comparison group. Years later, the same test subjects turned out to be an inch shorter than their peers.

The [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778451 well-documented]] overdiagnosis and overtreatment of ADHD in children and adults is troubling on its face but far worse when considered in light of Sonuga-Barke's understanding that ADHD diagnoses are purely subjective and effectively unfalsifiable; Swanson's admission that ADHD treatment doesn't help in the long-run; and Hoogman's admission that there is not a biological signature for the supposed disorder.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh [[https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1911576444066480371 noted]] in response to the New York Times Magazine article, "ADHD is one of the greatest scams in modern history. Millions of kids have been given mind-altering drugs on the basis of a lie. Now after decades — and after shouting down and defaming those of us who knew better — they're finally starting to admit it. It's infuriating."

==The Decades of Evidence That SSRI Antidepressants Cause Mass Shootings==

[[https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/there-is-decades-of-evidence-that A Midwestern Doctor]] who remains anonymous in order to keep his license but whose CDC-challenging medical news has a robust following, asks, of Ritalin and its cousins, "How Dangerous Must a Drug Be Before it is Pulled from the Market?"

A Midwestern Doctor
Nov 04, 2023
Story at a Glance:

•SSRI antidepressants have a variety of horrendous side effects. These include sometimes causing the individual to become agitated, feeling they can’t be in their skin, turning psychotic, and occasionally becoming violently psychotic.

•During these psychoses, individuals can have out of body experiences where they commit lethal violence either to themselves or others.

•As lawsuits later showed, this violent behavior (and the frequent suicides that followed it) were observed throughout the SSRI clinical trials, but were covered up by the SSRI manufacturers and then the drug regulators (e.g., the FDA).

•Once the SSRIs entered the market, there has been a wave of SSRI suicides and unspeakable acts of violence.

•Sadly, the idea that SSRIs could cause any of this has always been viewed as a “conspiracy theory” or “mistaking correlation with causation” because very few are aware of the extensive evidence linking SSRIs to violent and psychotic behavior—despite it now being on the warning label of those drugs.

Most holistic doctors consider Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) anti-depressants to be one of most harmful mass-prescribed drugs on the market (it typically makes their top 5). However unlike the other drugs, which are just unsafe and ineffective, SSRIs also have a fairly unique problem—they can kill people who are not even taking the drugs.

==The Mental Health Industry Is Incentivized to Keep Patients Medicated: Cooper Davis==

[[https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/the-mental-health-industry-is-incentivized-to-keep-patients-medicated-cooper-davis-5776191?src_src=morningbriefnoe&src_cmp=mb-2025-01-29&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAcesncgEFxOHb7b8arW1YALFohVYdvuMcXyDeLdrK6XnQrN38Iw== EpochTV]] January 28, 2025 EXCERPTS

At a young age, Cooper Davis was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed a low dose of Ritalin, which helped his ability to focus but caused unwanted side effects. To counteract them, he was prescribed other medications. By age 30, Davis was dependent on six different psychiatric drugs at any given time, what’s commonly known in the mental health community as a “prescription cascade.”

But the trend line [for solving every problem with a pill] has only gone up, despite there’s been many, many years of admonitions and people from inside the industry, from inside regulatory agencies, coming out and saying, this ship is going in a direction that nobody, nobody imagines is a good place.

Over-medication is a term that I cringe a little bit at just because it implies that there’s a right amount of medication. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily even the case. Psychiatric iatrogenesis is a pretty clinical term. There are people who identify as being part of something called the prescribed harm community. Statistically, in terms of causes of preventable death, it’s quite high and that can be alarming.

The CDC’s numbers say one out of four adults, or maybe just under, is currently taking at least one psychiatric drug, and around 6 million kids. The only commonly prescribed psychiatric medication that I personally would consider to be simple would be a stimulant, like what’s prescribed for ADHD. So your Adderall and your Ritalin. But when it comes to antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, sleep drugs, and that, you know, there’s increasingly a lot of off-label use as well.

I was somebody who was diagnosed at one point with treatment-resistant attention deficit disorder. And essentially what that means is that no drug treatment is sufficient. The severity of my disease is so great that I resist treatments that otherwise work for other people. And it’s a very unique consumer product, right, where if it doesn’t work as promised, you blame the consumer.

[When I was 17.] Started on Ritalin, five milligrams in the morning before school, and then a booster dose, although after lunchtime.
And did it help? I went from being a C student to an A student overnight.

[Before I had to force] myself to write an email that feels so tedious, and thenI realize I’m not breathing. It is that painful for me to be bored. What the drug did is it took that away and it made basically anything I chose to focus on equally engaging. Everything felt like it was interesting to me. And so once I was able to direct that, I took great pleasure in directing it at the things that were supposed to do and that were necessary in order to achieve academically.

The drug is really active for the first two, three hours after you take it. You have that morning dose and you have like a lunchtime dose. But by three, four o‘clock, five o’clock in high school and in college, you’re done with class. You’re done with school for the day. Now you’re going to go socialize with your friends. At that time of day, the drug is now wearing off and I’m experiencing what is widely known as a crash. There’s a stimulant crash once it wears off.
There’s no reason the doctor would even talk about that at all. There are not a lot of quantifiables in there to build studies around to capture evidence or define this as a risk of any kind. Some of those undesired effects, you don’t even know what they are until you are quite a few years down the road. What happens is over time, the therapeutic effect that you’re looking for generally diminishes. And sometimes the non-therapeutic or undesired effects do not diminish.

year after year, taking this every single day, my brain is quite used to having these chemicals present. It’s accommodating for their presence. And I start to become more and more anxious. My sleep is more and more disrupted. I’m already seeing a psychiatrist every month because I have to get my refills.

The psychiatrist says, how’s everything going? After a few appointments I responded to that question with, I’m still having trouble sleeping, I get really worked up and stressed out about A, B, and C. Then he says, it’s starting to affect your relationships, and it’s starting to affect your schoolwork. Why don’t we just try something you can take?

For me, that was a benzodiazepine called Ativan. And so that was my second drug. So I’m taking a stimulant and then to counteract and also kind of help with that come down as well, where you tend to get extra jittery. I’m taking a benzodiazepine. Valium is one, and Xanax is another benzodiazepine. For me, I started with Ativan.

So now, I’ve got something that kind of speeds me up and something that slows me down. I was prescribed benzodiazepine as needed, not to exceed two-a-day. I can take it when I feel I need it. So now I’m like, okay, well, I have this going on later. I know in an hour I have to be there, but I have this school work due at such and such a time.

Then from there it is called the prescription cascade. This is very common with antidepressants. You’re jumping around with different dosages, different stimulants, different benzodiazepines. Some doctors didn’t want me on benzodiazepines. They put me on gabapentinoids, which are similar but less addictive. You’re starting to have more trouble sleeping. Why don’t we add a sleep drug to the mix? Might as well. I’m already at the doctor’s office. I’m already at the pharmacy. Insurance makes this all sort of a negligible cost.

By the age of 30, at any given time, I’m on five or six different psychiatric drugs. I am also inconstant, unreliable, and I feel completely dependent on being able to use these drugs in order to fulfill the responsibilities and the roles of the life I created for myself. So this thing that the drugs enabled me to build, Whether it’s true or not, I now truly felt that the drugs also enabled me to keep it. Therefore, without them, I would not be able to kind of fulfill the promises that I had been able to make while taking these drugs.

It was clear to me and everyone around me, it was not helping me. I was not well. But at the same time, I felt like if I didn’t do it, I would not have everything that I had built and my identity as an adult person in the world. Age 17 to age 30 is when you figure out, hopefully, how you fit into society. For me, it was 100% predicated on access to all of these levers that I could push and pull. So I ended up coming off of all of them.

There were many crises. I had lost jobs. I had lost relationships. I had made bad decisions about where I would live or what, you know, make plans that I could not follow through on. I was disorganized. There were many crises along the road. When I would go to a prescriber and say, I think I want to find out who I would be off of all of these things. There was trepidation. They were not eager to scaffold that experience, to guide me through it, to get specific about how that might be done.

[It helped me get off all the drugs that] the stuff that I thought I needed to stay on the drugs in order to keep, it was already gone.

[My] Inner Compass Initiative was founded in 2017. Fundamentally, its mission statement is helping people make more informed choices about...coming off of these drugs. By the way, none of which are explicitly approved for long-term use. When the FDA is approving these drugs so that doctors can prescribe them, generally it’s on the basis of studies that run from six to eight weeks.

It is not hard to qualify for, you know, the DSM criteria for something if you walk into a psychiatrist’s office. [Then after years of addiction] People just cold turkey these drugs or their doctor takes them off over a month or two months, even though they’ve been taking it for a decade and a half. And then their life flies out of control and they think, geez, I’m a truly crazy person. Well, no, you’re drug injured.

if you are a 16-year-old girl, your boyfriend just broke up with you, you are so distraught, you can’t imagine living. You say, I want to die. The idea that the best expert in that scenario is a 65-year-old psychiatrist who went to Tufts University and can look at that girl and properly assess what she needs at that moment is kind of silly. Yet, in the narratives that we’re exposed to, there’s a sense of risk if you turn to any other expertise other than a clinical medical expert. These are very complicated problems and calling them medical problems does not make any sense. But this has become normal.

As soon as you say, I want to die, I want to kill myself, you’ve now not just triggered a set of policies depending on who hears it, if they’re a mandated reporter or whatever, policies that could trigger a response that can be really traumatic, more traumatic than the breakup, because now you’re a threat to yourself or others potentially, just like a category of person whose rights are not present anymore. The idea that this is a medical situation that requires medical expertise, and that is what is going to lead you out of this and lead you towards a sustainable, resilient persona that can handle these types of things. In a lot of ways, that is laughable. But if you can take the results of that teenage girl’s breakup and basically convert it into something that you can bill insurance for, then of course it’s going to be medicalized, right? And that common sense and that compassion and that care and that human to human connection, this is something that mental health care has a very hard time providing. Everything is transactional, everything is predicated on some kind of system.

[At our nonprofit] we’ve come up with a very straightforward form that people can fill out. It’s meant to capture what was going on in your life before you encountered the mental health industry. And this library will be just a searchable database like any other. We just want to become a conduit for layperson wisdom, layperson expertise, and the compassion we have for one another.

=The Supreme Court Precedent calling psychotherapy Fake Science=

The Supreme Court [http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Junk%20Science%20Case.htm cited] a book by Karl Popper to explain its shift in its definition of an "expert witness". The book gives psychotherapy as an example of a pseudo-science, as it explains the difference between it and real science. This link is to my article summarizing the concepts of the book.

[http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Popper.htm Excerpts from Karl Popper's book]. The Court quoted this article by Karl Popper which explains why Psychotherapy is no more "scientific" than astrology, the race-hating theories of Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, or pagan myths.

[https://www.biri.org/pdf/articles/Psychiatry-False.pdf? Statements of top psychiatrists admitting that the various categories of "mental illness", each of which has drug companies scrambling to market to each category, have no objective tests to distinguish them from each other, or even to distinguish them from "normal". This article is by Jon Rappoport, whose website is NoMoreFakeNews.com.

Psychology vs. the Bible

2025-04-19T17:53:51Z

DaveLeach:

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<blockquote>This article was started by [[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 20:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished from my writing with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.</blockquote>

A video version of this information, where a granddaughter played a Bible-quoting home schooler and I played a psychiatrist:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzz3VYgjOo Paychiatry Meets Match]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GTanxGqmmg Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 2]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZeqQD9vM8 Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 3]

'''Summary:''' Psychiatry is a direct enemy of Christianity, yet our government enforces it while it censors its critics. How is psychiatry an enemy of God?

'''Update: [ PsychologyToday.com] admits that Depression is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance, which is why antidepressant drugs "often" work no better than placebos.''' See excerpts from the Psychology Today article below.

'''(1) Religion vs. Relativism.''' Psychiatry will never tell a patient that his religion is what is making him crazy, because psychiatry sees all religions as alike. (Except for Biblical Christianity, which is a source of "guilt".) But God says only one religion is true, and living by it matters more than anything else. John 14:6.

'''(2) The Past.''' Psychiatry actually perpetuates guilt by dragging patients into their embarrassing past, for which patients are taught to blame others, rather than to be merciful and forgive. God tells us to stop wallowing in the past so you can concentrate on the present. Phillipians 3:13. Our time on earth is our last opportunity to do the work that lies here for us. Ecclesiastes 9:10.

'''(3) Guilt.''' God says our "conscience" protects us from error, so the worst thing we can do is stop listening to it; to "sear" it as "with a hot iron". 1 Timothy 4:2. Psychiatry says our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serve no purpose; there is nothing we need to change, but we just need to feel better about our actions: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty -- to stop listening to our conscience. The purpose of psychiatry is to "cure" our conscience.

'''(4) Pride.''' Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride -- "self esteem" -- the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem. What psychiatry calls "mental health", God calls an abomination. Proverbs 6:16. Being loved by God, or by anyone, cannot even be appreciated so long as one thinks "it is only what I deserve."

'''(5) Love.''' God defines love as sacrificing yourself for others. John 15:12-14. Psychiatry defines love as neglecting others and taking care of yourself. To psychiatry, "love" is a kind feeling which makes the lover feel good and "at peace" with the problems of others, without the necessity of actually having to try to personally solve them. (However, it is permissible to vote for other taxpayers to throw money at them. It is not important, in that case, whether said money actually solves anything.)

'''(6) Eternity.''' Psychiatry operates completely without reference to any existence beyond death. But God says only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth where nothing lasts. Luke 12:16-34. 1 Corinthians 15:12.

'''(7) Works v. Grace: Earning your own Healing.''' Psychology is a "religion of works". (In the King James Version, "works" is a term describing working/earning your own way, without God's help, into Heaven.) You can become mentally healthy through your own understanding that your conscience has nothing important to say, and that you can "love" others without "getting involved". You can even pay for your own therapy.

'''Bonus:''' Psychiatry does not inspire us to sacrificially love others as Jesus sacrificially loved us.

[[File: That_moment_when_you_try_to_explain_to_Jesus_how_hard_life_has_been_lately.jpg]]

(From the movie set of "The Passion". Mel Gibson, director, is discussing a scene with the actor playing Jesus.)

'''Introduction:''' This article will not persuade everybody who reads it to trust the Bible rather than Psychotherapy. But everyone who reads this will surely have to agree that the Bible, and Psychotherapy, are irreconcilable.

I hope that most, however, will also be persuaded that where the two differ, the Bible makes a LOT more sense.

In drawing these distinctions between Psychology and Scripture, I do not mean to suggest no psychotherapist can treat his patients by Scriptural principles. To the contrary, one of the features of psychotherapy, which argues against its status as a science, is the freedom of psychotherapists, once licensed, to make things up, or advocate personal convictions, and pass them off as representing the Science of Psychology even if it is 180 degrees away from the next psychotherapist down the street.

Rather, the Biblical views below, may well be presented in the course of the practice of certain psychotherapists; but they are not views learned in psychology classes. To the extent they are taught by psychotherapists, they are taught DESPITE their psychiatric training, certainly not because of it. The fact that psychotherapists routinely teach concepts they learned from common sense or from church helps account for what success they have.

Studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, made by psychiatrists themselves, by their own criteria, of whether they help their patients, show that they help some about as much as they harm others. The failure rate is very close to 50%. Actually, most such studies only compare people who receive communication with psychiatrists with those who receive no formal communication with anyone. In those handful of studies with a third control group in which patients communicate with some other group besides psychiatrists, those patients do best.

Psychiatrists know this. It is understandable why they don't care. But why do so many others rebel against these results?

The first reason is that a psychiatrist they have experience with may have dramatically helped them, perhaps because the psychiatrist relies not at all on his formal training, but on his personal wisdom, common sense, and the spirit of God in him.

The second reason, for some people, is that psychology is quite frankly their religion, and they will proclaim its virtues by faith, disregarding all contrary evidence, just as the buyers of "snake oil" home health products will share their vast claims with one another with no interest in scrutiny of their claims by any scientific process.

Here are a few fundamentals of psychiatry, compared with fundamentals of the Bible:

=1. Relativism=

What religion is "wrong enough" for a patient who practices it to be warned by a psychotherapist to leave it? Islam? Hardly. Cannibalism? We wish. If anything, Christian Fundamentalism acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God is an obstacle for psychotherapy. But ordinarily psychotherapy regards no religion, or doctrine, as the superior or inferior of any other.

(Except for Biblical Christianity, which is the cause of so much "guilt".)

Ditto for other standards of "right" and "wrong". Admittedly a staple of psychotherapy is its authority to label some people as "sick" and in need of treatment. This implies some standard at least of what is "mentally healthy". But where is there any standard even of what behavior constitutes "mental health", other than some mushy consensus voted upon by the American Psychiatric Association? The APA voted in the early '70's to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. 58% voted to remove it. What changed the APA thinking? Could it have been the semi-violent disruptions of the APA convention, two conventions in a row, by the sodomites, just before their vote? But it isn't just the APA that votes on who is mentally ill: the U.S. Supreme Court does too! In Powell v. Texas, the Court voted 5-4 to classify alcoholism as a "disease". In 1962 it had classified drug addiction as a "disease". Is there any standard of "right and wrong" or "mental illness and mental health" more objective, within psychotherapy, than a vote which might change next year? No.

By contrast, God insists that only His religion will lead us to sanity:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The Bible is God's Word and we may trust every word of it:

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

No one is excused for responsibility for evil because of "mental illness":

Jeremiah 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: ...

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What we today recognize as real mental illness (justifying being locked up) fits the Biblical descriptions of demon possession, for which one cure alone exists: the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one Treatment generally denied those who most desperately need it.

Act 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12 ...and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.... 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.

=2. The Past: Doorway to Healing=

Guilt is actually perpetuated by psychiatrists as they drag patients through their embarrassing pasts, for which they are taught to blame others. Psychotherapists deal much more with the past than other people. The Past, that is, not as in the History of America, or preserving historical homes, but as in one's individual past problems, worst nightmares, childhood embarrassments, etc.

Admittedly, the ostensible purpose is to pull up these old memories so they can be patched up and put back so they can be forgotten, like pulling out an oil burning motor and giving it a valve job so it can be put back to do its jb without commanding our attention any more.

But more than in any other human activity, psychotherapists work at remembering old pains that otherwise would not even have been remembered, for the sake of then "healing" them.

By contrast, God wants us to "let sleeping dogs lie" (for those in need of an illustration of this analogy, once I was delivering literature door to door. I stepped up on a very cluttered porch and was just about to reach for the door, when I recognized, almost camouflaged among the clutter, an enormous, sleeping dog. I thought, "he's asleep. I think it is safe to reach just one more foot and I can leave my literature before he wakes, and then run." Well, about 6" later, he woke up, and he didn't like being wakened. He really didn't like seeing me there at all. I decided to run now, and think about the literature later.)

Philemon 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

=3. Guilt has no objective basis=

God says the worst thing we can do is deaden our conscience, because its purpose is to save us from terrible error. But psychiatry says the worst thing we can do is feel guilty. Our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serves no purpose, since there is nothing we need to change: we just need to feel better about what we do: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty. The goal of psychiatry is to "cure" conscience.

To a psychotherapist, guilt serves no useful purpose. His job is to remove it. It is not useful for identifying some failure, or evil, for which there is a penalty that must be paid. It is not necessary, in removing the guilt, to repent of anything, or to seek forgiveness; the only necessity is to stop FEELING guilty. The only necessity is to recognize, as the truth, that there is no good reason to feel guilty. Guilt is "poor mental health" which results less from what you might have done, than from what others may have done to intimidate you such as Bible-believing Christians who warned you to leave a life of Sin.

What you have done to hurt somebody else is a problem to be treated only insofar as religious myths have acted upon your cruelty to fill you with depression and guilt. Then only the depression and guilt must be treated so you no longer feel bad about having hurt others. If you have vanquished guilt by developing a heart of steel, incapable of love, then you have healed yourself. As long as you have no guilt or depression, you are "mentally healthy".

By contrast, the Bible teaches that we have a Conscience which we must heed; that all are guilty and that spiritual healing depends upon our acknowledging that reality; that we must repent of that which justifiably provokes our guilt; and that the cure for guilt is to realize guilt is our constant companion, but that God loves us despite our sins, and promises to help us grow above them, in the same sense that "mistakes" will always be with a musician, and ought always be acknowledged for the sake of avoiding them, but through continual practice we will grow so that despite them, we may produce Music.

The following passages show the nature of our "conscience": it is a way God (sometimes through angels?) speaks to us, and we must obey. There are limits to its usefulness in judging others. Our immature doctrines can cause us to misinterpret another saint's actions as endorsing what we think is wrong. The more we sin, the less clear conscience becomes.

John 8:9 And they which heard it, '''being convicted by their own conscience,''' went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

1 Timothy 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; '''having their conscience seared with a hot iron;'''

Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but '''even their mind and conscience is defiled.'''

Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also '''for conscience sake.'''

1 Corinthians 8:7 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and '''their conscience being weak is defiled.'''... 10 For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; ....12 But when ye sin so against the brethren, and '''wound their weak conscience''', ye sin against Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for '''why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?'''

Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God... 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

=4. Self esteem!=

Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride ("self esteem"), the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem! God says it is just the opposite: "pride" is possibly the greatest of sins, something which must be overcome and replaced with a consciousness of one's Love-refreshed guilt!

No wonder psychotherapy sees Bible-believing Christianity, with its proclamation of Sin and the Need for Repentance, as an obstacle to its healing methods, which must be neutralized.

(In fact, "love" cannot even be appreciated without consciousness of guilt. What makes "love" love is when it loves, not the deserving, but the undeserving anyway, DESPITE not being deserved. Thus one cannot appreciate being loved, as long as one thinks it is nothing special because "it is only what I deserve". Only with awareness of one's reason for guilt can one's own heart be moved by being loved despite one's faults.)

Proverbs 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look,...

Psalms 12:3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?

=5. Self Love=

"Love" is honored within the field of psychology, all right, but not Biblical love. Self-service is the goal of all therapy, through redefinition of "Love". "Love" is defined as a kind feeling, which is beneficial to feel because it makes one's self feel good. The warm, comfortable feeling makes one "at peace" with others' problems, without the necessity of actually having to personally get involved.

The Biblical definition of Love as self-sacrifice, for the benefit of another, is not positively attacked by psychology, but it is not in any sense positively affirmed, and "altruism" is cynically analyzed as having for its motivation the good feeling it gives the giver. Would "excessive altruism" be seen by psychologists as something to be treated? I don't know, but it is certainly called "fanaticism".

John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

=6. Eternity is Irrelevant=

In the world of Psychology, one's morals, one's relationships with others, one's goals and sources of pleasure and fulfillment, may all be legitimately evaluated without reference to any existence beyond death. In fact, no licensed Psychiatrist, except to the extent he goes beyond the principles represented by his license, will even DISCUSS the need to plan for eternity.

Christianity holds the opposite! Only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth, wherein nothing lasts!

Luke 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

=7. Earning Healing=

In the world of Psychology, there is no "penalty" that must be "paid" by others before you can be healed; there is no "penalty" so great that you cannot afford to pay it yourself. You can earn your own way in to health. The road to mental health is paved by understanding, by greater knowledge. You can even pay for the cost of your own therapy.

Psychology is the exception to the rule, "You get what you pay for."

Have you murdered someone? Raped someone? Psychology will not judge you a criminal, or even as having done "wrong", much less "wickedly", but, at worst, as "sick", merely in need of treatment. A psychiatrist may even be willing to testify that you should not be jailed as a criminal, but treated as a patient. Certainly there is nothing about things like committing abortion, divorce, sodomy, or viewing pornography, that would concern a psychotherapist, unless some other element were involved such as you feeling uncomfortable or guilty about it. And then the therapy would focus on removing the guilt, not on correcting the behavior. At best, you may be judged "mentally healthy" though you have ruined many lives. You do not need to "ask forgiveness" of anybody or of God to remain perfectly "healthy".

By contrast, Christianity teaches that, just as a baby cannot "earn" his food, clothing, and shelter but must rely for his very existence on the love of his parents, we cannot "earn" God's help or love (without which we cannot exist) because there is nothing we can do that will even slightly personally benefit God,

Psalm 50:7 ...am God, even thy God. ... 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. 10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: 15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

Even if there were any currency in which we might repay God, the cost would be staggering, because our hatred is so deep that loveing us has cost God dearly! Men hated God so deeply that they killed Him on the Cross; and our hatred is like theirs.

John 15:If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

"Grace" is one of Christianity's wonderful words. It means "gift". It means "charisma", that quality in someone that just draws others to him like flies to honey. It means "joy". Our salvation our deliverance from emptiness, depression, meaninglessness, lack of purpose, Hell cannot be accomplished by our own efforts alone; but by working with God. This point has confused people, so let me state it more carefully: our work, or our "works" as the KJV puts it, cannot "earn" us one drop of blood that Jesus shed for our salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

However, we must "work", as an aspect of our "Faith" our trust in God, Heaven's "therapist", to give us "counsel" for our own benefit, obedience to which will bless us..

James 2:What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

We must "work", not to "repay" or benefit God, but to benefit ourselves; this is God's requirement, not because God wants us to reward Him, but because God loves us and wants us to grow into Sons of God who will one day sit WITH HIM IN HIS THRONE! Try earning THAT!

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

==PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work==

What is more astounding than the research reported in the July 24, 2022 issue of [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain Psychology Today] is that '''Psychology Today admits it!''' And closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! Here are some unbelievable excerpts:

"First, you should realize that while antidepressants may work for you, they do not work for everybody, and we do not know how they work. Anyone who tells you differently is lying—to you or to themselves (or both).

"Second, if you hear a medical professional using the term “chemical imbalance” to explain depression, you are hearing a fictional narrative (or a sales pitch), not scientific fact. Look for better-quality care...."

"Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief....

"The causes of depression have been long debated, yet a common explanation holds that the culprit is “chemical imbalance” in the brain. This [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428540/#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20was%20approved%20by%20the,%2C%20%26%20Bymaster%2C%202005). notion] emerged, not coincidentally, in the late '80s with the introduction of Prozac—a drug that appeared to be helpful in treating depression by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin.

"Pushed [https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392 heavily] by the pharmaceutical industry, as well as reputable professional [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X#bib20 organizations] such as the American Psychiatric Association, this storyline has since become the [https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0735-7028.38.4.411 dominant narrative] with regard to depression, accepted by the majority of people in the U.S., and leading more and more people to think of their psychological [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X difficulties] in terms of chemical brain processes. Depression treatment, in turn, has leaned ever more heavily on antidepressant medications, widely touted as the first, and best, intervention approach.

"(The myth) provided clear answers for both physicians and their suffering patients—an elegant explanation of the symptoms and a readily available remedy in pill form; pharma companies made money." But it was soon discovered that the pills are "[https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-5341-3-14 less effective] than once hoped and advertised. About [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091023163346.htm half] of patients get no relief from these medications", and there are "distressing side effects".

"[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30385-3/fulltext [R]esearch] has shown that drug effects are often no better than those achieved via placebo....

'''"A 2010 [https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/318293 review] of the literature summarized: 'Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy'..."

They knew 12 years ago! Where have you heard this admitted?

Psychology Today continues, with the study that triggered this article: "A [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 recent] (2022) exhaustive 'umbrella review' (a review of meta-analyses and other reviews) of this diverse literature by Joanna Moncrieff of University College London and colleagues examined the accumulated evidence in all the above lines of inquiry. The conclusions are clear: 'The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.'”

Not that anyone is ready to stop worshipping at the First Church of Psychiatry. "Lead author Joanna Moncrieff [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080145.htm said]....'One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people's lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.'"

The Bible offers a solid understanding of "adverse life events" and how "all things work together for good for everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose." Romans 8:28, KJV, CEV translations

CONCLUDING COMMENTS: What is more astounding than the research is that Psychology Today admits it and closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! For decades the ability of psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs to treat depresion has been one of the strongest arguments in defense of psychiatry! This gives me hope that one day hospitals and doctors will finally admit that covid vaccines and masks don't work. This admission has seemed for years as likely as "when Hell freezes over". As hard to comprehend as the Bible verses saying even the Devil will one day bow his knee to Jesus!

Romans 14:11 It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.” 12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.…

Isaiah 45:22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.

Zephaniah 2:10 This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts. 11 The LORD will be terrifying to them when He starves all the gods of the earth. Then the nations of every shore will bow in worship to Him, each in its own place.

==ADHD is NOT biological & solvable with chemicals==

Excerpts from [[https://www.theblaze.com/news/scientists-who-suggested-adhd-has-biological-basis-recants-conclusion After long suggesting ADHD has biological basis, scientists now make stunning admission]] by Joseph Mackinnon, April 14, 2025

There was a damning admission in New York Times Magazine over the weekend that may inspire new doubts about the credibility of the so-called experts advising the masses on matters of health, namely that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may not have a basis in biology after all.

That admission was not volunteered from some activist or critic but rather by the Dutch neuroscientist who apparently misled the world into thinking "A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain."

In a piece titled "Have we been thinking about A.D.H.D. all wrong?" Paul Tough discussed the correlated explosion of ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions in the 1990s — a trend, he noted, that was accompanied by criticism from parents and others concerned about the apparent campaign to load kids with methylphenidate and amphetamines.

"You didn't have to be a Scientologist to acknowledge that there were some legitimate questions about A.D.H.D.," wrote Tough. "Despite Ritalin's rapid growth, no one knew exactly how the medication worked or whether it really was the best way to treat children's attention issues."

Parents were right to be concerned.

Ritalin, Adderall, and the other highly addictive stimulants foisted upon hard-to-control American youths have a variety of undesirable side effects, both immediate and long-term.

In the short term, they can cause side effects such as bladder pain, bloody urine, an irregular heartbeat and palpitations, diarrhea, headaches, joint pain, trouble sleeping, confusion, agitation, seizures, and vomiting. In the long term, these drugs can apparently impact growth, dopamine regulation, and memory formation and retention and cause elevated blood pressure, psychosis, and mood disorders.

Tough noted that the medical establishment, already bullish on the ADHD craze, seized upon the initial results of the [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/205525 Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study]]. The study, published in 1999, suggested that Ritalin was effective.

While the children in their MTA study reported improvements after 14 months of choking down stimulants, after 36 months, their advantage had effectively disappeared such that they were expressing the same supposed symptoms as the comparison group. Years later, the same test subjects turned out to be an inch shorter than their peers.

The [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778451 well-documented]] overdiagnosis and overtreatment of ADHD in children and adults is troubling on its face but far worse when considered in light of Sonuga-Barke's understanding that ADHD diagnoses are purely subjective and effectively unfalsifiable; Swanson's admission that ADHD treatment doesn't help in the long-run; and Hoogman's admission that there is not a biological signature for the supposed disorder.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh [[https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1911576444066480371 noted]] in response to the New York Times Magazine article, "ADHD is one of the greatest scams in modern history. Millions of kids have been given mind-altering drugs on the basis of a lie. Now after decades — and after shouting down and defaming those of us who knew better — they're finally starting to admit it. It's infuriating."

==The Decades of Evidence That SSRI Antidepressants Cause Mass Shootings==

[[https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/there-is-decades-of-evidence-that A Midwestern Doctor]] who remains anonymous in order to keep his license but whose CDC-challenging medical news has a robust following, asks, of Ritalin and its cousins, "How Dangerous Must a Drug Be Before it is Pulled from the Market?"

A Midwestern Doctor
Nov 04, 2023
Story at a Glance:

•SSRI antidepressants have a variety of horrendous side effects. These include sometimes causing the individual to become agitated, feeling they can’t be in their skin, turning psychotic, and occasionally becoming violently psychotic.

•During these psychoses, individuals can have out of body experiences where they commit lethal violence either to themselves or others.

•As lawsuits later showed, this violent behavior (and the frequent suicides that followed it) were observed throughout the SSRI clinical trials, but were covered up by the SSRI manufacturers and then the drug regulators (e.g., the FDA).

•Once the SSRIs entered the market, there has been a wave of SSRI suicides and unspeakable acts of violence.

•Sadly, the idea that SSRIs could cause any of this has always been viewed as a “conspiracy theory” or “mistaking correlation with causation” because very few are aware of the extensive evidence linking SSRIs to violent and psychotic behavior—despite it now being on the warning label of those drugs.

Most holistic doctors consider Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) anti-depressants to be one of most harmful mass-prescribed drugs on the market (it typically makes their top 5). However unlike the other drugs, which are just unsafe and ineffective, SSRIs also have a fairly unique problem—they can kill people who are not even taking the drugs.

=The Supreme Court Precedent calling psychotherapy Fake Science=

The Supreme Court [http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Junk%20Science%20Case.htm cited] a book by Karl Popper to explain its shift in its definition of an "expert witness". The book gives psychotherapy as an example of a pseudo-science, as it explains the difference between it and real science. This link is to my article summarizing the concepts of the book.

[http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Popper.htm Excerpts from Karl Popper's book]. The Court quoted this article by Karl Popper which explains why Psychotherapy is no more "scientific" than astrology, the race-hating theories of Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, or pagan myths.

[https://www.biri.org/pdf/articles/Psychiatry-False.pdf? Statements of top psychiatrists admitting that the various categories of "mental illness", each of which has drug companies scrambling to market to each category, have no objective tests to distinguish them from each other, or even to distinguish them from "normal". This article is by Jon Rappoport, whose website is NoMoreFakeNews.com.

Psychology vs. the Bible

2025-04-16T21:39:43Z

DaveLeach: /* ADHD is NOT biological, solvable with chemicals */

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<blockquote>This article was started by [[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 20:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished from my writing with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.</blockquote>

A video version of this information, where a granddaughter played a Bible-quoting home schooler and I played a psychiatrist:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzz3VYgjOo Paychiatry Meets Match]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GTanxGqmmg Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 2]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZeqQD9vM8 Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 3]

'''Summary:''' Psychiatry is a direct enemy of Christianity, yet our government enforces it while it censors its critics. How is psychiatry an enemy of God?

'''Update: [ PsychologyToday.com] admits that Depression is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance, which is why antidepressant drugs "often" work no better than placebos.''' See excerpts from the Psychology Today article below.

'''(1) Religion vs. Relativism.''' Psychiatry will never tell a patient that his religion is what is making him crazy, because psychiatry sees all religions as alike. (Except for Biblical Christianity, which is a source of "guilt".) But God says only one religion is true, and living by it matters more than anything else. John 14:6.

'''(2) The Past.''' Psychiatry actually perpetuates guilt by dragging patients into their embarrassing past, for which patients are taught to blame others, rather than to be merciful and forgive. God tells us to stop wallowing in the past so you can concentrate on the present. Phillipians 3:13. Our time on earth is our last opportunity to do the work that lies here for us. Ecclesiastes 9:10.

'''(3) Guilt.''' God says our "conscience" protects us from error, so the worst thing we can do is stop listening to it; to "sear" it as "with a hot iron". 1 Timothy 4:2. Psychiatry says our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serve no purpose; there is nothing we need to change, but we just need to feel better about our actions: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty -- to stop listening to our conscience. The purpose of psychiatry is to "cure" our conscience.

'''(4) Pride.''' Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride -- "self esteem" -- the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem. What psychiatry calls "mental health", God calls an abomination. Proverbs 6:16. Being loved by God, or by anyone, cannot even be appreciated so long as one thinks "it is only what I deserve."

'''(5) Love.''' God defines love as sacrificing yourself for others. John 15:12-14. Psychiatry defines love as neglecting others and taking care of yourself. To psychiatry, "love" is a kind feeling which makes the lover feel good and "at peace" with the problems of others, without the necessity of actually having to try to personally solve them. (However, it is permissible to vote for other taxpayers to throw money at them. It is not important, in that case, whether said money actually solves anything.)

'''(6) Eternity.''' Psychiatry operates completely without reference to any existence beyond death. But God says only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth where nothing lasts. Luke 12:16-34. 1 Corinthians 15:12.

'''(7) Works v. Grace: Earning your own Healing.''' Psychology is a "religion of works". (In the King James Version, "works" is a term describing working/earning your own way, without God's help, into Heaven.) You can become mentally healthy through your own understanding that your conscience has nothing important to say, and that you can "love" others without "getting involved". You can even pay for your own therapy.

'''Bonus:''' Psychiatry does not inspire us to sacrificially love others as Jesus sacrificially loved us.

[[File: That_moment_when_you_try_to_explain_to_Jesus_how_hard_life_has_been_lately.jpg]]

(From the movie set of "The Passion". Mel Gibson, director, is discussing a scene with the actor playing Jesus.)

'''Introduction:''' This article will not persuade everybody who reads it to trust the Bible rather than Psychotherapy. But everyone who reads this will surely have to agree that the Bible, and Psychotherapy, are irreconcilable.

I hope that most, however, will also be persuaded that where the two differ, the Bible makes a LOT more sense.

In drawing these distinctions between Psychology and Scripture, I do not mean to suggest no psychotherapist can treat his patients by Scriptural principles. To the contrary, one of the features of psychotherapy, which argues against its status as a science, is the freedom of psychotherapists, once licensed, to make things up, or advocate personal convictions, and pass them off as representing the Science of Psychology even if it is 180 degrees away from the next psychotherapist down the street.

Rather, the Biblical views below, may well be presented in the course of the practice of certain psychotherapists; but they are not views learned in psychology classes. To the extent they are taught by psychotherapists, they are taught DESPITE their psychiatric training, certainly not because of it. The fact that psychotherapists routinely teach concepts they learned from common sense or from church helps account for what success they have.

Studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, made by psychiatrists themselves, by their own criteria, of whether they help their patients, show that they help some about as much as they harm others. The failure rate is very close to 50%. Actually, most such studies only compare people who receive communication with psychiatrists with those who receive no formal communication with anyone. In those handful of studies with a third control group in which patients communicate with some other group besides psychiatrists, those patients do best.

Psychiatrists know this. It is understandable why they don't care. But why do so many others rebel against these results?

The first reason is that a psychiatrist they have experience with may have dramatically helped them, perhaps because the psychiatrist relies not at all on his formal training, but on his personal wisdom, common sense, and the spirit of God in him.

The second reason, for some people, is that psychology is quite frankly their religion, and they will proclaim its virtues by faith, disregarding all contrary evidence, just as the buyers of "snake oil" home health products will share their vast claims with one another with no interest in scrutiny of their claims by any scientific process.

Here are a few fundamentals of psychiatry, compared with fundamentals of the Bible:

=1. Relativism=

What religion is "wrong enough" for a patient who practices it to be warned by a psychotherapist to leave it? Islam? Hardly. Cannibalism? We wish. If anything, Christian Fundamentalism acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God is an obstacle for psychotherapy. But ordinarily psychotherapy regards no religion, or doctrine, as the superior or inferior of any other.

(Except for Biblical Christianity, which is the cause of so much "guilt".)

Ditto for other standards of "right" and "wrong". Admittedly a staple of psychotherapy is its authority to label some people as "sick" and in need of treatment. This implies some standard at least of what is "mentally healthy". But where is there any standard even of what behavior constitutes "mental health", other than some mushy consensus voted upon by the American Psychiatric Association? The APA voted in the early '70's to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. 58% voted to remove it. What changed the APA thinking? Could it have been the semi-violent disruptions of the APA convention, two conventions in a row, by the sodomites, just before their vote? But it isn't just the APA that votes on who is mentally ill: the U.S. Supreme Court does too! In Powell v. Texas, the Court voted 5-4 to classify alcoholism as a "disease". In 1962 it had classified drug addiction as a "disease". Is there any standard of "right and wrong" or "mental illness and mental health" more objective, within psychotherapy, than a vote which might change next year? No.

By contrast, God insists that only His religion will lead us to sanity:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The Bible is God's Word and we may trust every word of it:

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

No one is excused for responsibility for evil because of "mental illness":

Jeremiah 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: ...

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What we today recognize as real mental illness (justifying being locked up) fits the Biblical descriptions of demon possession, for which one cure alone exists: the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one Treatment generally denied those who most desperately need it.

Act 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12 ...and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.... 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.

=2. The Past: Doorway to Healing=

Guilt is actually perpetuated by psychiatrists as they drag patients through their embarrassing pasts, for which they are taught to blame others. Psychotherapists deal much more with the past than other people. The Past, that is, not as in the History of America, or preserving historical homes, but as in one's individual past problems, worst nightmares, childhood embarrassments, etc.

Admittedly, the ostensible purpose is to pull up these old memories so they can be patched up and put back so they can be forgotten, like pulling out an oil burning motor and giving it a valve job so it can be put back to do its jb without commanding our attention any more.

But more than in any other human activity, psychotherapists work at remembering old pains that otherwise would not even have been remembered, for the sake of then "healing" them.

By contrast, God wants us to "let sleeping dogs lie" (for those in need of an illustration of this analogy, once I was delivering literature door to door. I stepped up on a very cluttered porch and was just about to reach for the door, when I recognized, almost camouflaged among the clutter, an enormous, sleeping dog. I thought, "he's asleep. I think it is safe to reach just one more foot and I can leave my literature before he wakes, and then run." Well, about 6" later, he woke up, and he didn't like being wakened. He really didn't like seeing me there at all. I decided to run now, and think about the literature later.)

Philemon 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

=3. Guilt has no objective basis=

God says the worst thing we can do is deaden our conscience, because its purpose is to save us from terrible error. But psychiatry says the worst thing we can do is feel guilty. Our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serves no purpose, since there is nothing we need to change: we just need to feel better about what we do: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty. The goal of psychiatry is to "cure" conscience.

To a psychotherapist, guilt serves no useful purpose. His job is to remove it. It is not useful for identifying some failure, or evil, for which there is a penalty that must be paid. It is not necessary, in removing the guilt, to repent of anything, or to seek forgiveness; the only necessity is to stop FEELING guilty. The only necessity is to recognize, as the truth, that there is no good reason to feel guilty. Guilt is "poor mental health" which results less from what you might have done, than from what others may have done to intimidate you such as Bible-believing Christians who warned you to leave a life of Sin.

What you have done to hurt somebody else is a problem to be treated only insofar as religious myths have acted upon your cruelty to fill you with depression and guilt. Then only the depression and guilt must be treated so you no longer feel bad about having hurt others. If you have vanquished guilt by developing a heart of steel, incapable of love, then you have healed yourself. As long as you have no guilt or depression, you are "mentally healthy".

By contrast, the Bible teaches that we have a Conscience which we must heed; that all are guilty and that spiritual healing depends upon our acknowledging that reality; that we must repent of that which justifiably provokes our guilt; and that the cure for guilt is to realize guilt is our constant companion, but that God loves us despite our sins, and promises to help us grow above them, in the same sense that "mistakes" will always be with a musician, and ought always be acknowledged for the sake of avoiding them, but through continual practice we will grow so that despite them, we may produce Music.

The following passages show the nature of our "conscience": it is a way God (sometimes through angels?) speaks to us, and we must obey. There are limits to its usefulness in judging others. Our immature doctrines can cause us to misinterpret another saint's actions as endorsing what we think is wrong. The more we sin, the less clear conscience becomes.

John 8:9 And they which heard it, '''being convicted by their own conscience,''' went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

1 Timothy 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; '''having their conscience seared with a hot iron;'''

Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but '''even their mind and conscience is defiled.'''

Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also '''for conscience sake.'''

1 Corinthians 8:7 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and '''their conscience being weak is defiled.'''... 10 For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; ....12 But when ye sin so against the brethren, and '''wound their weak conscience''', ye sin against Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for '''why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?'''

Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God... 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

=4. Self esteem!=

Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride ("self esteem"), the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem! God says it is just the opposite: "pride" is possibly the greatest of sins, something which must be overcome and replaced with a consciousness of one's Love-refreshed guilt!

No wonder psychotherapy sees Bible-believing Christianity, with its proclamation of Sin and the Need for Repentance, as an obstacle to its healing methods, which must be neutralized.

(In fact, "love" cannot even be appreciated without consciousness of guilt. What makes "love" love is when it loves, not the deserving, but the undeserving anyway, DESPITE not being deserved. Thus one cannot appreciate being loved, as long as one thinks it is nothing special because "it is only what I deserve". Only with awareness of one's reason for guilt can one's own heart be moved by being loved despite one's faults.)

Proverbs 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look,...

Psalms 12:3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?

=5. Self Love=

"Love" is honored within the field of psychology, all right, but not Biblical love. Self-service is the goal of all therapy, through redefinition of "Love". "Love" is defined as a kind feeling, which is beneficial to feel because it makes one's self feel good. The warm, comfortable feeling makes one "at peace" with others' problems, without the necessity of actually having to personally get involved.

The Biblical definition of Love as self-sacrifice, for the benefit of another, is not positively attacked by psychology, but it is not in any sense positively affirmed, and "altruism" is cynically analyzed as having for its motivation the good feeling it gives the giver. Would "excessive altruism" be seen by psychologists as something to be treated? I don't know, but it is certainly called "fanaticism".

John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

=6. Eternity is Irrelevant=

In the world of Psychology, one's morals, one's relationships with others, one's goals and sources of pleasure and fulfillment, may all be legitimately evaluated without reference to any existence beyond death. In fact, no licensed Psychiatrist, except to the extent he goes beyond the principles represented by his license, will even DISCUSS the need to plan for eternity.

Christianity holds the opposite! Only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth, wherein nothing lasts!

Luke 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

=7. Earning Healing=

In the world of Psychology, there is no "penalty" that must be "paid" by others before you can be healed; there is no "penalty" so great that you cannot afford to pay it yourself. You can earn your own way in to health. The road to mental health is paved by understanding, by greater knowledge. You can even pay for the cost of your own therapy.

Psychology is the exception to the rule, "You get what you pay for."

Have you murdered someone? Raped someone? Psychology will not judge you a criminal, or even as having done "wrong", much less "wickedly", but, at worst, as "sick", merely in need of treatment. A psychiatrist may even be willing to testify that you should not be jailed as a criminal, but treated as a patient. Certainly there is nothing about things like committing abortion, divorce, sodomy, or viewing pornography, that would concern a psychotherapist, unless some other element were involved such as you feeling uncomfortable or guilty about it. And then the therapy would focus on removing the guilt, not on correcting the behavior. At best, you may be judged "mentally healthy" though you have ruined many lives. You do not need to "ask forgiveness" of anybody or of God to remain perfectly "healthy".

By contrast, Christianity teaches that, just as a baby cannot "earn" his food, clothing, and shelter but must rely for his very existence on the love of his parents, we cannot "earn" God's help or love (without which we cannot exist) because there is nothing we can do that will even slightly personally benefit God,

Psalm 50:7 ...am God, even thy God. ... 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. 10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: 15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

Even if there were any currency in which we might repay God, the cost would be staggering, because our hatred is so deep that loveing us has cost God dearly! Men hated God so deeply that they killed Him on the Cross; and our hatred is like theirs.

John 15:If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

"Grace" is one of Christianity's wonderful words. It means "gift". It means "charisma", that quality in someone that just draws others to him like flies to honey. It means "joy". Our salvation our deliverance from emptiness, depression, meaninglessness, lack of purpose, Hell cannot be accomplished by our own efforts alone; but by working with God. This point has confused people, so let me state it more carefully: our work, or our "works" as the KJV puts it, cannot "earn" us one drop of blood that Jesus shed for our salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

However, we must "work", as an aspect of our "Faith" our trust in God, Heaven's "therapist", to give us "counsel" for our own benefit, obedience to which will bless us..

James 2:What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

We must "work", not to "repay" or benefit God, but to benefit ourselves; this is God's requirement, not because God wants us to reward Him, but because God loves us and wants us to grow into Sons of God who will one day sit WITH HIM IN HIS THRONE! Try earning THAT!

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

==PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work==

What is more astounding than the research reported in the July 24, 2022 issue of [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain Psychology Today] is that '''Psychology Today admits it!''' And closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! Here are some unbelievable excerpts:

"First, you should realize that while antidepressants may work for you, they do not work for everybody, and we do not know how they work. Anyone who tells you differently is lying—to you or to themselves (or both).

"Second, if you hear a medical professional using the term “chemical imbalance” to explain depression, you are hearing a fictional narrative (or a sales pitch), not scientific fact. Look for better-quality care...."

"Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief....

"The causes of depression have been long debated, yet a common explanation holds that the culprit is “chemical imbalance” in the brain. This [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428540/#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20was%20approved%20by%20the,%2C%20%26%20Bymaster%2C%202005). notion] emerged, not coincidentally, in the late '80s with the introduction of Prozac—a drug that appeared to be helpful in treating depression by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin.

"Pushed [https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392 heavily] by the pharmaceutical industry, as well as reputable professional [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X#bib20 organizations] such as the American Psychiatric Association, this storyline has since become the [https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0735-7028.38.4.411 dominant narrative] with regard to depression, accepted by the majority of people in the U.S., and leading more and more people to think of their psychological [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X difficulties] in terms of chemical brain processes. Depression treatment, in turn, has leaned ever more heavily on antidepressant medications, widely touted as the first, and best, intervention approach.

"(The myth) provided clear answers for both physicians and their suffering patients—an elegant explanation of the symptoms and a readily available remedy in pill form; pharma companies made money." But it was soon discovered that the pills are "[https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-5341-3-14 less effective] than once hoped and advertised. About [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091023163346.htm half] of patients get no relief from these medications", and there are "distressing side effects".

"[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30385-3/fulltext [R]esearch] has shown that drug effects are often no better than those achieved via placebo....

'''"A 2010 [https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/318293 review] of the literature summarized: 'Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy'..."

They knew 12 years ago! Where have you heard this admitted?

Psychology Today continues, with the study that triggered this article: "A [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 recent] (2022) exhaustive 'umbrella review' (a review of meta-analyses and other reviews) of this diverse literature by Joanna Moncrieff of University College London and colleagues examined the accumulated evidence in all the above lines of inquiry. The conclusions are clear: 'The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.'”

Not that anyone is ready to stop worshipping at the First Church of Psychiatry. "Lead author Joanna Moncrieff [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080145.htm said]....'One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people's lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.'"

The Bible offers a solid understanding of "adverse life events" and how "all things work together for good for everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose." Romans 8:28, KJV, CEV translations

CONCLUDING COMMENTS: What is more astounding than the research is that Psychology Today admits it and closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! For decades the ability of psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs to treat depresion has been one of the strongest arguments in defense of psychiatry! This gives me hope that one day hospitals and doctors will finally admit that covid vaccines and masks don't work. This admission has seemed for years as likely as "when Hell freezes over". As hard to comprehend as the Bible verses saying even the Devil will one day bow his knee to Jesus!

Romans 14:11 It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.” 12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.…

Isaiah 45:22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.

Zephaniah 2:10 This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts. 11 The LORD will be terrifying to them when He starves all the gods of the earth. Then the nations of every shore will bow in worship to Him, each in its own place.

==ADHD is NOT biological, solvable with chemicals==

Excerpts from [[https://www.theblaze.com/news/scientists-who-suggested-adhd-has-biological-basis-recants-conclusion After long suggesting ADHD has biological basis, scientists now make stunning admission]] by Joseph Mackinnon, April 14, 2025

There was a damning admission in New York Times Magazine over the weekend that may inspire new doubts about the credibility of the so-called experts advising the masses on matters of health, namely that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may not have a basis in biology after all.

That admission was not volunteered from some activist or critic but rather by the Dutch neuroscientist who apparently misled the world into thinking "A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain."

In a piece titled "Have we been thinking about A.D.H.D. all wrong?" Paul Tough discussed the correlated explosion of ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions in the 1990s — a trend, he noted, that was accompanied by criticism from parents and others concerned about the apparent campaign to load kids with methylphenidate and amphetamines.

"You didn't have to be a Scientologist to acknowledge that there were some legitimate questions about A.D.H.D.," wrote Tough. "Despite Ritalin's rapid growth, no one knew exactly how the medication worked or whether it really was the best way to treat children's attention issues."

Parents were right to be concerned.

Ritalin, Adderall, and the other highly addictive stimulants foisted upon hard-to-control American youths have a variety of undesirable side effects, both immediate and long-term.

In the short term, they can cause side effects such as bladder pain, bloody urine, an irregular heartbeat and palpitations, diarrhea, headaches, joint pain, trouble sleeping, confusion, agitation, seizures, and vomiting. In the long term, these drugs can apparently impact growth, dopamine regulation, and memory formation and retention and cause elevated blood pressure, psychosis, and mood disorders.

Tough noted that the medical establishment, already bullish on the ADHD craze, seized upon the initial results of the [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/205525 Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study]]. The study, published in 1999, suggested that Ritalin was effective.

While the children in their MTA study reported improvements after 14 months of choking down stimulants, after 36 months, their advantage had effectively disappeared such that they were expressing the same supposed symptoms as the comparison group. Years later, the same test subjects turned out to be an inch shorter than their peers.

The [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778451 well-documented]] overdiagnosis and overtreatment of ADHD in children and adults is troubling on its face but far worse when considered in light of Sonuga-Barke's understanding that ADHD diagnoses are purely subjective and effectively unfalsifiable; Swanson's admission that ADHD treatment doesn't help in the long-run; and Hoogman's admission that there is not a biological signature for the supposed disorder.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh [[https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1911576444066480371 noted]] in response to the New York Times Magazine article, "ADHD is one of the greatest scams in modern history. Millions of kids have been given mind-altering drugs on the basis of a lie. Now after decades — and after shouting down and defaming those of us who knew better — they're finally starting to admit it. It's infuriating."

=The Supreme Court Precedent calling psychotherapy Fake Science=

The Supreme Court [http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Junk%20Science%20Case.htm cited] a book by Karl Popper to explain its shift in its definition of an "expert witness". The book gives psychotherapy as an example of a pseudo-science, as it explains the difference between it and real science. This link is to my article summarizing the concepts of the book.

[http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Popper.htm Excerpts from Karl Popper's book]. The Court quoted this article by Karl Popper which explains why Psychotherapy is no more "scientific" than astrology, the race-hating theories of Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, or pagan myths.

[https://www.biri.org/pdf/articles/Psychiatry-False.pdf? Statements of top psychiatrists admitting that the various categories of "mental illness", each of which has drug companies scrambling to market to each category, have no objective tests to distinguish them from each other, or even to distinguish them from "normal". This article is by Jon Rappoport, whose website is NoMoreFakeNews.com.

Psychology vs. the Bible

2025-04-16T21:37:06Z

DaveLeach: /* ADHD is NOT biological, solvable with chemicals */

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<blockquote>This article was started by [[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 20:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished from my writing with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.</blockquote>

A video version of this information, where a granddaughter played a Bible-quoting home schooler and I played a psychiatrist:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzz3VYgjOo Paychiatry Meets Match]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GTanxGqmmg Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 2]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZeqQD9vM8 Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 3]

'''Summary:''' Psychiatry is a direct enemy of Christianity, yet our government enforces it while it censors its critics. How is psychiatry an enemy of God?

'''Update: [ PsychologyToday.com] admits that Depression is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance, which is why antidepressant drugs "often" work no better than placebos.''' See excerpts from the Psychology Today article below.

'''(1) Religion vs. Relativism.''' Psychiatry will never tell a patient that his religion is what is making him crazy, because psychiatry sees all religions as alike. (Except for Biblical Christianity, which is a source of "guilt".) But God says only one religion is true, and living by it matters more than anything else. John 14:6.

'''(2) The Past.''' Psychiatry actually perpetuates guilt by dragging patients into their embarrassing past, for which patients are taught to blame others, rather than to be merciful and forgive. God tells us to stop wallowing in the past so you can concentrate on the present. Phillipians 3:13. Our time on earth is our last opportunity to do the work that lies here for us. Ecclesiastes 9:10.

'''(3) Guilt.''' God says our "conscience" protects us from error, so the worst thing we can do is stop listening to it; to "sear" it as "with a hot iron". 1 Timothy 4:2. Psychiatry says our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serve no purpose; there is nothing we need to change, but we just need to feel better about our actions: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty -- to stop listening to our conscience. The purpose of psychiatry is to "cure" our conscience.

'''(4) Pride.''' Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride -- "self esteem" -- the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem. What psychiatry calls "mental health", God calls an abomination. Proverbs 6:16. Being loved by God, or by anyone, cannot even be appreciated so long as one thinks "it is only what I deserve."

'''(5) Love.''' God defines love as sacrificing yourself for others. John 15:12-14. Psychiatry defines love as neglecting others and taking care of yourself. To psychiatry, "love" is a kind feeling which makes the lover feel good and "at peace" with the problems of others, without the necessity of actually having to try to personally solve them. (However, it is permissible to vote for other taxpayers to throw money at them. It is not important, in that case, whether said money actually solves anything.)

'''(6) Eternity.''' Psychiatry operates completely without reference to any existence beyond death. But God says only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth where nothing lasts. Luke 12:16-34. 1 Corinthians 15:12.

'''(7) Works v. Grace: Earning your own Healing.''' Psychology is a "religion of works". (In the King James Version, "works" is a term describing working/earning your own way, without God's help, into Heaven.) You can become mentally healthy through your own understanding that your conscience has nothing important to say, and that you can "love" others without "getting involved". You can even pay for your own therapy.

'''Bonus:''' Psychiatry does not inspire us to sacrificially love others as Jesus sacrificially loved us.

[[File: That_moment_when_you_try_to_explain_to_Jesus_how_hard_life_has_been_lately.jpg]]

(From the movie set of "The Passion". Mel Gibson, director, is discussing a scene with the actor playing Jesus.)

'''Introduction:''' This article will not persuade everybody who reads it to trust the Bible rather than Psychotherapy. But everyone who reads this will surely have to agree that the Bible, and Psychotherapy, are irreconcilable.

I hope that most, however, will also be persuaded that where the two differ, the Bible makes a LOT more sense.

In drawing these distinctions between Psychology and Scripture, I do not mean to suggest no psychotherapist can treat his patients by Scriptural principles. To the contrary, one of the features of psychotherapy, which argues against its status as a science, is the freedom of psychotherapists, once licensed, to make things up, or advocate personal convictions, and pass them off as representing the Science of Psychology even if it is 180 degrees away from the next psychotherapist down the street.

Rather, the Biblical views below, may well be presented in the course of the practice of certain psychotherapists; but they are not views learned in psychology classes. To the extent they are taught by psychotherapists, they are taught DESPITE their psychiatric training, certainly not because of it. The fact that psychotherapists routinely teach concepts they learned from common sense or from church helps account for what success they have.

Studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, made by psychiatrists themselves, by their own criteria, of whether they help their patients, show that they help some about as much as they harm others. The failure rate is very close to 50%. Actually, most such studies only compare people who receive communication with psychiatrists with those who receive no formal communication with anyone. In those handful of studies with a third control group in which patients communicate with some other group besides psychiatrists, those patients do best.

Psychiatrists know this. It is understandable why they don't care. But why do so many others rebel against these results?

The first reason is that a psychiatrist they have experience with may have dramatically helped them, perhaps because the psychiatrist relies not at all on his formal training, but on his personal wisdom, common sense, and the spirit of God in him.

The second reason, for some people, is that psychology is quite frankly their religion, and they will proclaim its virtues by faith, disregarding all contrary evidence, just as the buyers of "snake oil" home health products will share their vast claims with one another with no interest in scrutiny of their claims by any scientific process.

Here are a few fundamentals of psychiatry, compared with fundamentals of the Bible:

=1. Relativism=

What religion is "wrong enough" for a patient who practices it to be warned by a psychotherapist to leave it? Islam? Hardly. Cannibalism? We wish. If anything, Christian Fundamentalism acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God is an obstacle for psychotherapy. But ordinarily psychotherapy regards no religion, or doctrine, as the superior or inferior of any other.

(Except for Biblical Christianity, which is the cause of so much "guilt".)

Ditto for other standards of "right" and "wrong". Admittedly a staple of psychotherapy is its authority to label some people as "sick" and in need of treatment. This implies some standard at least of what is "mentally healthy". But where is there any standard even of what behavior constitutes "mental health", other than some mushy consensus voted upon by the American Psychiatric Association? The APA voted in the early '70's to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. 58% voted to remove it. What changed the APA thinking? Could it have been the semi-violent disruptions of the APA convention, two conventions in a row, by the sodomites, just before their vote? But it isn't just the APA that votes on who is mentally ill: the U.S. Supreme Court does too! In Powell v. Texas, the Court voted 5-4 to classify alcoholism as a "disease". In 1962 it had classified drug addiction as a "disease". Is there any standard of "right and wrong" or "mental illness and mental health" more objective, within psychotherapy, than a vote which might change next year? No.

By contrast, God insists that only His religion will lead us to sanity:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The Bible is God's Word and we may trust every word of it:

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

No one is excused for responsibility for evil because of "mental illness":

Jeremiah 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: ...

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What we today recognize as real mental illness (justifying being locked up) fits the Biblical descriptions of demon possession, for which one cure alone exists: the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one Treatment generally denied those who most desperately need it.

Act 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12 ...and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.... 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.

=2. The Past: Doorway to Healing=

Guilt is actually perpetuated by psychiatrists as they drag patients through their embarrassing pasts, for which they are taught to blame others. Psychotherapists deal much more with the past than other people. The Past, that is, not as in the History of America, or preserving historical homes, but as in one's individual past problems, worst nightmares, childhood embarrassments, etc.

Admittedly, the ostensible purpose is to pull up these old memories so they can be patched up and put back so they can be forgotten, like pulling out an oil burning motor and giving it a valve job so it can be put back to do its jb without commanding our attention any more.

But more than in any other human activity, psychotherapists work at remembering old pains that otherwise would not even have been remembered, for the sake of then "healing" them.

By contrast, God wants us to "let sleeping dogs lie" (for those in need of an illustration of this analogy, once I was delivering literature door to door. I stepped up on a very cluttered porch and was just about to reach for the door, when I recognized, almost camouflaged among the clutter, an enormous, sleeping dog. I thought, "he's asleep. I think it is safe to reach just one more foot and I can leave my literature before he wakes, and then run." Well, about 6" later, he woke up, and he didn't like being wakened. He really didn't like seeing me there at all. I decided to run now, and think about the literature later.)

Philemon 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

=3. Guilt has no objective basis=

God says the worst thing we can do is deaden our conscience, because its purpose is to save us from terrible error. But psychiatry says the worst thing we can do is feel guilty. Our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serves no purpose, since there is nothing we need to change: we just need to feel better about what we do: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty. The goal of psychiatry is to "cure" conscience.

To a psychotherapist, guilt serves no useful purpose. His job is to remove it. It is not useful for identifying some failure, or evil, for which there is a penalty that must be paid. It is not necessary, in removing the guilt, to repent of anything, or to seek forgiveness; the only necessity is to stop FEELING guilty. The only necessity is to recognize, as the truth, that there is no good reason to feel guilty. Guilt is "poor mental health" which results less from what you might have done, than from what others may have done to intimidate you such as Bible-believing Christians who warned you to leave a life of Sin.

What you have done to hurt somebody else is a problem to be treated only insofar as religious myths have acted upon your cruelty to fill you with depression and guilt. Then only the depression and guilt must be treated so you no longer feel bad about having hurt others. If you have vanquished guilt by developing a heart of steel, incapable of love, then you have healed yourself. As long as you have no guilt or depression, you are "mentally healthy".

By contrast, the Bible teaches that we have a Conscience which we must heed; that all are guilty and that spiritual healing depends upon our acknowledging that reality; that we must repent of that which justifiably provokes our guilt; and that the cure for guilt is to realize guilt is our constant companion, but that God loves us despite our sins, and promises to help us grow above them, in the same sense that "mistakes" will always be with a musician, and ought always be acknowledged for the sake of avoiding them, but through continual practice we will grow so that despite them, we may produce Music.

The following passages show the nature of our "conscience": it is a way God (sometimes through angels?) speaks to us, and we must obey. There are limits to its usefulness in judging others. Our immature doctrines can cause us to misinterpret another saint's actions as endorsing what we think is wrong. The more we sin, the less clear conscience becomes.

John 8:9 And they which heard it, '''being convicted by their own conscience,''' went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

1 Timothy 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; '''having their conscience seared with a hot iron;'''

Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but '''even their mind and conscience is defiled.'''

Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also '''for conscience sake.'''

1 Corinthians 8:7 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and '''their conscience being weak is defiled.'''... 10 For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; ....12 But when ye sin so against the brethren, and '''wound their weak conscience''', ye sin against Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for '''why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?'''

Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God... 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

=4. Self esteem!=

Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride ("self esteem"), the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem! God says it is just the opposite: "pride" is possibly the greatest of sins, something which must be overcome and replaced with a consciousness of one's Love-refreshed guilt!

No wonder psychotherapy sees Bible-believing Christianity, with its proclamation of Sin and the Need for Repentance, as an obstacle to its healing methods, which must be neutralized.

(In fact, "love" cannot even be appreciated without consciousness of guilt. What makes "love" love is when it loves, not the deserving, but the undeserving anyway, DESPITE not being deserved. Thus one cannot appreciate being loved, as long as one thinks it is nothing special because "it is only what I deserve". Only with awareness of one's reason for guilt can one's own heart be moved by being loved despite one's faults.)

Proverbs 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look,...

Psalms 12:3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?

=5. Self Love=

"Love" is honored within the field of psychology, all right, but not Biblical love. Self-service is the goal of all therapy, through redefinition of "Love". "Love" is defined as a kind feeling, which is beneficial to feel because it makes one's self feel good. The warm, comfortable feeling makes one "at peace" with others' problems, without the necessity of actually having to personally get involved.

The Biblical definition of Love as self-sacrifice, for the benefit of another, is not positively attacked by psychology, but it is not in any sense positively affirmed, and "altruism" is cynically analyzed as having for its motivation the good feeling it gives the giver. Would "excessive altruism" be seen by psychologists as something to be treated? I don't know, but it is certainly called "fanaticism".

John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

=6. Eternity is Irrelevant=

In the world of Psychology, one's morals, one's relationships with others, one's goals and sources of pleasure and fulfillment, may all be legitimately evaluated without reference to any existence beyond death. In fact, no licensed Psychiatrist, except to the extent he goes beyond the principles represented by his license, will even DISCUSS the need to plan for eternity.

Christianity holds the opposite! Only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth, wherein nothing lasts!

Luke 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

=7. Earning Healing=

In the world of Psychology, there is no "penalty" that must be "paid" by others before you can be healed; there is no "penalty" so great that you cannot afford to pay it yourself. You can earn your own way in to health. The road to mental health is paved by understanding, by greater knowledge. You can even pay for the cost of your own therapy.

Psychology is the exception to the rule, "You get what you pay for."

Have you murdered someone? Raped someone? Psychology will not judge you a criminal, or even as having done "wrong", much less "wickedly", but, at worst, as "sick", merely in need of treatment. A psychiatrist may even be willing to testify that you should not be jailed as a criminal, but treated as a patient. Certainly there is nothing about things like committing abortion, divorce, sodomy, or viewing pornography, that would concern a psychotherapist, unless some other element were involved such as you feeling uncomfortable or guilty about it. And then the therapy would focus on removing the guilt, not on correcting the behavior. At best, you may be judged "mentally healthy" though you have ruined many lives. You do not need to "ask forgiveness" of anybody or of God to remain perfectly "healthy".

By contrast, Christianity teaches that, just as a baby cannot "earn" his food, clothing, and shelter but must rely for his very existence on the love of his parents, we cannot "earn" God's help or love (without which we cannot exist) because there is nothing we can do that will even slightly personally benefit God,

Psalm 50:7 ...am God, even thy God. ... 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. 10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: 15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

Even if there were any currency in which we might repay God, the cost would be staggering, because our hatred is so deep that loveing us has cost God dearly! Men hated God so deeply that they killed Him on the Cross; and our hatred is like theirs.

John 15:If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

"Grace" is one of Christianity's wonderful words. It means "gift". It means "charisma", that quality in someone that just draws others to him like flies to honey. It means "joy". Our salvation our deliverance from emptiness, depression, meaninglessness, lack of purpose, Hell cannot be accomplished by our own efforts alone; but by working with God. This point has confused people, so let me state it more carefully: our work, or our "works" as the KJV puts it, cannot "earn" us one drop of blood that Jesus shed for our salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

However, we must "work", as an aspect of our "Faith" our trust in God, Heaven's "therapist", to give us "counsel" for our own benefit, obedience to which will bless us..

James 2:What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

We must "work", not to "repay" or benefit God, but to benefit ourselves; this is God's requirement, not because God wants us to reward Him, but because God loves us and wants us to grow into Sons of God who will one day sit WITH HIM IN HIS THRONE! Try earning THAT!

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

==PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work==

What is more astounding than the research reported in the July 24, 2022 issue of [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain Psychology Today] is that '''Psychology Today admits it!''' And closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! Here are some unbelievable excerpts:

"First, you should realize that while antidepressants may work for you, they do not work for everybody, and we do not know how they work. Anyone who tells you differently is lying—to you or to themselves (or both).

"Second, if you hear a medical professional using the term “chemical imbalance” to explain depression, you are hearing a fictional narrative (or a sales pitch), not scientific fact. Look for better-quality care...."

"Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief....

"The causes of depression have been long debated, yet a common explanation holds that the culprit is “chemical imbalance” in the brain. This [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428540/#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20was%20approved%20by%20the,%2C%20%26%20Bymaster%2C%202005). notion] emerged, not coincidentally, in the late '80s with the introduction of Prozac—a drug that appeared to be helpful in treating depression by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin.

"Pushed [https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392 heavily] by the pharmaceutical industry, as well as reputable professional [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X#bib20 organizations] such as the American Psychiatric Association, this storyline has since become the [https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0735-7028.38.4.411 dominant narrative] with regard to depression, accepted by the majority of people in the U.S., and leading more and more people to think of their psychological [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X difficulties] in terms of chemical brain processes. Depression treatment, in turn, has leaned ever more heavily on antidepressant medications, widely touted as the first, and best, intervention approach.

"(The myth) provided clear answers for both physicians and their suffering patients—an elegant explanation of the symptoms and a readily available remedy in pill form; pharma companies made money." But it was soon discovered that the pills are "[https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-5341-3-14 less effective] than once hoped and advertised. About [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091023163346.htm half] of patients get no relief from these medications", and there are "distressing side effects".

"[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30385-3/fulltext [R]esearch] has shown that drug effects are often no better than those achieved via placebo....

'''"A 2010 [https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/318293 review] of the literature summarized: 'Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy'..."

They knew 12 years ago! Where have you heard this admitted?

Psychology Today continues, with the study that triggered this article: "A [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 recent] (2022) exhaustive 'umbrella review' (a review of meta-analyses and other reviews) of this diverse literature by Joanna Moncrieff of University College London and colleagues examined the accumulated evidence in all the above lines of inquiry. The conclusions are clear: 'The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.'”

Not that anyone is ready to stop worshipping at the First Church of Psychiatry. "Lead author Joanna Moncrieff [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080145.htm said]....'One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people's lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.'"

The Bible offers a solid understanding of "adverse life events" and how "all things work together for good for everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose." Romans 8:28, KJV, CEV translations

CONCLUDING COMMENTS: What is more astounding than the research is that Psychology Today admits it and closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! For decades the ability of psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs to treat depresion has been one of the strongest arguments in defense of psychiatry! This gives me hope that one day hospitals and doctors will finally admit that covid vaccines and masks don't work. This admission has seemed for years as likely as "when Hell freezes over". As hard to comprehend as the Bible verses saying even the Devil will one day bow his knee to Jesus!

Romans 14:11 It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.” 12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.…

Isaiah 45:22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.

Zephaniah 2:10 This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts. 11 The LORD will be terrifying to them when He starves all the gods of the earth. Then the nations of every shore will bow in worship to Him, each in its own place.

==ADHD is NOT biological, solvable with chemicals==

Excerpts from [[https://www.theblaze.com/news/scientists-who-suggested-adhd-has-biological-basis-recants-conclusion After long suggesting ADHD has biological basis, scientists now make stunning admission]] by Joseph Mackinnon, April 14, 2025

There was a damning admission in New York Times Magazine over the weekend that may inspire new doubts about the credibility of the so-called experts advising the masses on matters of health, namely that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may not have a basis in biology after all.

That admission was not volunteered from some activist or critic but rather by the Dutch neuroscientist who apparently misled the world into thinking "A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain."

In a piece titled "Have we been thinking about A.D.H.D. all wrong?" Paul Tough discussed the correlated explosion of ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions in the 1990s — a trend, he noted, that was accompanied by criticism from parents and others concerned about the apparent campaign to load kids with methylphenidate and amphetamines.

"You didn't have to be a Scientologist to acknowledge that there were some legitimate questions about A.D.H.D.," wrote Tough. "Despite Ritalin's rapid growth, no one knew exactly how the medication worked or whether it really was the best way to treat children's attention issues."

Parents were right to be concerned.

Ritalin, Adderall, and the other highly addictive stimulants foisted upon hard-to-control American youths have a variety of undesirable side effects, both immediate and long-term.

In the short term, they can cause side effects such as bladder pain, bloody urine, an irregular heartbeat and palpitations, diarrhea, headaches, joint pain, trouble sleeping, confusion, agitation, seizures, and vomiting. In the long term, these drugs can apparently impact growth, dopamine regulation, and memory formation and retention and cause elevated blood pressure, psychosis, and mood disorders.

Tough noted that the medical establishment, already bullish on the ADHD craze, seized upon the initial results of the [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/205525 Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study]]. The study, published in 1999, suggested that Ritalin was effective.

While the children in their MTA study reported improvements after 14 months of choking down stimulants, after 36 months, their advantage had effectively disappeared such that they were expressing the same supposed symptoms as the comparison group. Years later, the same test subjects turned out to be an inch shorter than their peers.

The [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778451 well-documented]] overdiagnosis and overtreatment of ADHD in children and adults is troubling on its face but far worse when considered in light of Sonuga-Barke's understanding that ADHD diagnoses are purely subjective and effectively unfalsifiable; Swanson's admission that ADHD treatment doesn't help in the long-run; and Hoogman's admission that there is not a biological signature for the supposed disorder.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh [[https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1911576444066480371 noted]] in response to the New York Times Magazine article, "ADHD is one of the greatest scams in modern history. Millions of kids have been given mind-altering drugs on the basis of a lie. Now after decades — and after shouting down and defaming those of us who knew better — they're finally starting to admit it. It's infuriating."

=The Supreme Court Precedent calling psychotherapy Fake Science=

The Supreme Court [http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Junk%20Science%20Case.htm cited] a book by Karl Popper to explain its shift in its definition of an "expert witness". The book gives psychotherapy as an example of a pseudo-science, as it explains the difference between it and real science. This link is to my article summarizing the concepts of the book.

[http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Popper.htm Excerpts from Karl Popper's book]. The Court quoted this article by Karl Popper which explains why Psychotherapy is no more "scientific" than astrology, the race-hating theories of Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, or pagan myths.

[https://www.biri.org/pdf/articles/Psychiatry-False.pdf? Statements of top psychiatrists admitting that the various categories of "mental illness", each of which has drug companies scrambling to market to each category, have no objective tests to distinguish them from each other, or even to distinguish them from "normal". This article is by Jon Rappoport, whose website is NoMoreFakeNews.com.

Psychology vs. the Bible

2025-04-16T21:35:24Z

DaveLeach: /* PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work */

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<blockquote>This article was started by [[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 20:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished from my writing with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.</blockquote>

A video version of this information, where a granddaughter played a Bible-quoting home schooler and I played a psychiatrist:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzz3VYgjOo Paychiatry Meets Match]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GTanxGqmmg Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 2]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZeqQD9vM8 Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 3]

'''Summary:''' Psychiatry is a direct enemy of Christianity, yet our government enforces it while it censors its critics. How is psychiatry an enemy of God?

'''Update: [ PsychologyToday.com] admits that Depression is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance, which is why antidepressant drugs "often" work no better than placebos.''' See excerpts from the Psychology Today article below.

'''(1) Religion vs. Relativism.''' Psychiatry will never tell a patient that his religion is what is making him crazy, because psychiatry sees all religions as alike. (Except for Biblical Christianity, which is a source of "guilt".) But God says only one religion is true, and living by it matters more than anything else. John 14:6.

'''(2) The Past.''' Psychiatry actually perpetuates guilt by dragging patients into their embarrassing past, for which patients are taught to blame others, rather than to be merciful and forgive. God tells us to stop wallowing in the past so you can concentrate on the present. Phillipians 3:13. Our time on earth is our last opportunity to do the work that lies here for us. Ecclesiastes 9:10.

'''(3) Guilt.''' God says our "conscience" protects us from error, so the worst thing we can do is stop listening to it; to "sear" it as "with a hot iron". 1 Timothy 4:2. Psychiatry says our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serve no purpose; there is nothing we need to change, but we just need to feel better about our actions: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty -- to stop listening to our conscience. The purpose of psychiatry is to "cure" our conscience.

'''(4) Pride.''' Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride -- "self esteem" -- the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem. What psychiatry calls "mental health", God calls an abomination. Proverbs 6:16. Being loved by God, or by anyone, cannot even be appreciated so long as one thinks "it is only what I deserve."

'''(5) Love.''' God defines love as sacrificing yourself for others. John 15:12-14. Psychiatry defines love as neglecting others and taking care of yourself. To psychiatry, "love" is a kind feeling which makes the lover feel good and "at peace" with the problems of others, without the necessity of actually having to try to personally solve them. (However, it is permissible to vote for other taxpayers to throw money at them. It is not important, in that case, whether said money actually solves anything.)

'''(6) Eternity.''' Psychiatry operates completely without reference to any existence beyond death. But God says only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth where nothing lasts. Luke 12:16-34. 1 Corinthians 15:12.

'''(7) Works v. Grace: Earning your own Healing.''' Psychology is a "religion of works". (In the King James Version, "works" is a term describing working/earning your own way, without God's help, into Heaven.) You can become mentally healthy through your own understanding that your conscience has nothing important to say, and that you can "love" others without "getting involved". You can even pay for your own therapy.

'''Bonus:''' Psychiatry does not inspire us to sacrificially love others as Jesus sacrificially loved us.

[[File: That_moment_when_you_try_to_explain_to_Jesus_how_hard_life_has_been_lately.jpg]]

(From the movie set of "The Passion". Mel Gibson, director, is discussing a scene with the actor playing Jesus.)

'''Introduction:''' This article will not persuade everybody who reads it to trust the Bible rather than Psychotherapy. But everyone who reads this will surely have to agree that the Bible, and Psychotherapy, are irreconcilable.

I hope that most, however, will also be persuaded that where the two differ, the Bible makes a LOT more sense.

In drawing these distinctions between Psychology and Scripture, I do not mean to suggest no psychotherapist can treat his patients by Scriptural principles. To the contrary, one of the features of psychotherapy, which argues against its status as a science, is the freedom of psychotherapists, once licensed, to make things up, or advocate personal convictions, and pass them off as representing the Science of Psychology even if it is 180 degrees away from the next psychotherapist down the street.

Rather, the Biblical views below, may well be presented in the course of the practice of certain psychotherapists; but they are not views learned in psychology classes. To the extent they are taught by psychotherapists, they are taught DESPITE their psychiatric training, certainly not because of it. The fact that psychotherapists routinely teach concepts they learned from common sense or from church helps account for what success they have.

Studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, made by psychiatrists themselves, by their own criteria, of whether they help their patients, show that they help some about as much as they harm others. The failure rate is very close to 50%. Actually, most such studies only compare people who receive communication with psychiatrists with those who receive no formal communication with anyone. In those handful of studies with a third control group in which patients communicate with some other group besides psychiatrists, those patients do best.

Psychiatrists know this. It is understandable why they don't care. But why do so many others rebel against these results?

The first reason is that a psychiatrist they have experience with may have dramatically helped them, perhaps because the psychiatrist relies not at all on his formal training, but on his personal wisdom, common sense, and the spirit of God in him.

The second reason, for some people, is that psychology is quite frankly their religion, and they will proclaim its virtues by faith, disregarding all contrary evidence, just as the buyers of "snake oil" home health products will share their vast claims with one another with no interest in scrutiny of their claims by any scientific process.

Here are a few fundamentals of psychiatry, compared with fundamentals of the Bible:

=1. Relativism=

What religion is "wrong enough" for a patient who practices it to be warned by a psychotherapist to leave it? Islam? Hardly. Cannibalism? We wish. If anything, Christian Fundamentalism acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God is an obstacle for psychotherapy. But ordinarily psychotherapy regards no religion, or doctrine, as the superior or inferior of any other.

(Except for Biblical Christianity, which is the cause of so much "guilt".)

Ditto for other standards of "right" and "wrong". Admittedly a staple of psychotherapy is its authority to label some people as "sick" and in need of treatment. This implies some standard at least of what is "mentally healthy". But where is there any standard even of what behavior constitutes "mental health", other than some mushy consensus voted upon by the American Psychiatric Association? The APA voted in the early '70's to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. 58% voted to remove it. What changed the APA thinking? Could it have been the semi-violent disruptions of the APA convention, two conventions in a row, by the sodomites, just before their vote? But it isn't just the APA that votes on who is mentally ill: the U.S. Supreme Court does too! In Powell v. Texas, the Court voted 5-4 to classify alcoholism as a "disease". In 1962 it had classified drug addiction as a "disease". Is there any standard of "right and wrong" or "mental illness and mental health" more objective, within psychotherapy, than a vote which might change next year? No.

By contrast, God insists that only His religion will lead us to sanity:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The Bible is God's Word and we may trust every word of it:

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

No one is excused for responsibility for evil because of "mental illness":

Jeremiah 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: ...

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What we today recognize as real mental illness (justifying being locked up) fits the Biblical descriptions of demon possession, for which one cure alone exists: the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one Treatment generally denied those who most desperately need it.

Act 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12 ...and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.... 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.

=2. The Past: Doorway to Healing=

Guilt is actually perpetuated by psychiatrists as they drag patients through their embarrassing pasts, for which they are taught to blame others. Psychotherapists deal much more with the past than other people. The Past, that is, not as in the History of America, or preserving historical homes, but as in one's individual past problems, worst nightmares, childhood embarrassments, etc.

Admittedly, the ostensible purpose is to pull up these old memories so they can be patched up and put back so they can be forgotten, like pulling out an oil burning motor and giving it a valve job so it can be put back to do its jb without commanding our attention any more.

But more than in any other human activity, psychotherapists work at remembering old pains that otherwise would not even have been remembered, for the sake of then "healing" them.

By contrast, God wants us to "let sleeping dogs lie" (for those in need of an illustration of this analogy, once I was delivering literature door to door. I stepped up on a very cluttered porch and was just about to reach for the door, when I recognized, almost camouflaged among the clutter, an enormous, sleeping dog. I thought, "he's asleep. I think it is safe to reach just one more foot and I can leave my literature before he wakes, and then run." Well, about 6" later, he woke up, and he didn't like being wakened. He really didn't like seeing me there at all. I decided to run now, and think about the literature later.)

Philemon 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

=3. Guilt has no objective basis=

God says the worst thing we can do is deaden our conscience, because its purpose is to save us from terrible error. But psychiatry says the worst thing we can do is feel guilty. Our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serves no purpose, since there is nothing we need to change: we just need to feel better about what we do: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty. The goal of psychiatry is to "cure" conscience.

To a psychotherapist, guilt serves no useful purpose. His job is to remove it. It is not useful for identifying some failure, or evil, for which there is a penalty that must be paid. It is not necessary, in removing the guilt, to repent of anything, or to seek forgiveness; the only necessity is to stop FEELING guilty. The only necessity is to recognize, as the truth, that there is no good reason to feel guilty. Guilt is "poor mental health" which results less from what you might have done, than from what others may have done to intimidate you such as Bible-believing Christians who warned you to leave a life of Sin.

What you have done to hurt somebody else is a problem to be treated only insofar as religious myths have acted upon your cruelty to fill you with depression and guilt. Then only the depression and guilt must be treated so you no longer feel bad about having hurt others. If you have vanquished guilt by developing a heart of steel, incapable of love, then you have healed yourself. As long as you have no guilt or depression, you are "mentally healthy".

By contrast, the Bible teaches that we have a Conscience which we must heed; that all are guilty and that spiritual healing depends upon our acknowledging that reality; that we must repent of that which justifiably provokes our guilt; and that the cure for guilt is to realize guilt is our constant companion, but that God loves us despite our sins, and promises to help us grow above them, in the same sense that "mistakes" will always be with a musician, and ought always be acknowledged for the sake of avoiding them, but through continual practice we will grow so that despite them, we may produce Music.

The following passages show the nature of our "conscience": it is a way God (sometimes through angels?) speaks to us, and we must obey. There are limits to its usefulness in judging others. Our immature doctrines can cause us to misinterpret another saint's actions as endorsing what we think is wrong. The more we sin, the less clear conscience becomes.

John 8:9 And they which heard it, '''being convicted by their own conscience,''' went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

1 Timothy 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; '''having their conscience seared with a hot iron;'''

Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but '''even their mind and conscience is defiled.'''

Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also '''for conscience sake.'''

1 Corinthians 8:7 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and '''their conscience being weak is defiled.'''... 10 For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; ....12 But when ye sin so against the brethren, and '''wound their weak conscience''', ye sin against Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for '''why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?'''

Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God... 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

=4. Self esteem!=

Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride ("self esteem"), the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem! God says it is just the opposite: "pride" is possibly the greatest of sins, something which must be overcome and replaced with a consciousness of one's Love-refreshed guilt!

No wonder psychotherapy sees Bible-believing Christianity, with its proclamation of Sin and the Need for Repentance, as an obstacle to its healing methods, which must be neutralized.

(In fact, "love" cannot even be appreciated without consciousness of guilt. What makes "love" love is when it loves, not the deserving, but the undeserving anyway, DESPITE not being deserved. Thus one cannot appreciate being loved, as long as one thinks it is nothing special because "it is only what I deserve". Only with awareness of one's reason for guilt can one's own heart be moved by being loved despite one's faults.)

Proverbs 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look,...

Psalms 12:3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?

=5. Self Love=

"Love" is honored within the field of psychology, all right, but not Biblical love. Self-service is the goal of all therapy, through redefinition of "Love". "Love" is defined as a kind feeling, which is beneficial to feel because it makes one's self feel good. The warm, comfortable feeling makes one "at peace" with others' problems, without the necessity of actually having to personally get involved.

The Biblical definition of Love as self-sacrifice, for the benefit of another, is not positively attacked by psychology, but it is not in any sense positively affirmed, and "altruism" is cynically analyzed as having for its motivation the good feeling it gives the giver. Would "excessive altruism" be seen by psychologists as something to be treated? I don't know, but it is certainly called "fanaticism".

John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

=6. Eternity is Irrelevant=

In the world of Psychology, one's morals, one's relationships with others, one's goals and sources of pleasure and fulfillment, may all be legitimately evaluated without reference to any existence beyond death. In fact, no licensed Psychiatrist, except to the extent he goes beyond the principles represented by his license, will even DISCUSS the need to plan for eternity.

Christianity holds the opposite! Only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth, wherein nothing lasts!

Luke 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

=7. Earning Healing=

In the world of Psychology, there is no "penalty" that must be "paid" by others before you can be healed; there is no "penalty" so great that you cannot afford to pay it yourself. You can earn your own way in to health. The road to mental health is paved by understanding, by greater knowledge. You can even pay for the cost of your own therapy.

Psychology is the exception to the rule, "You get what you pay for."

Have you murdered someone? Raped someone? Psychology will not judge you a criminal, or even as having done "wrong", much less "wickedly", but, at worst, as "sick", merely in need of treatment. A psychiatrist may even be willing to testify that you should not be jailed as a criminal, but treated as a patient. Certainly there is nothing about things like committing abortion, divorce, sodomy, or viewing pornography, that would concern a psychotherapist, unless some other element were involved such as you feeling uncomfortable or guilty about it. And then the therapy would focus on removing the guilt, not on correcting the behavior. At best, you may be judged "mentally healthy" though you have ruined many lives. You do not need to "ask forgiveness" of anybody or of God to remain perfectly "healthy".

By contrast, Christianity teaches that, just as a baby cannot "earn" his food, clothing, and shelter but must rely for his very existence on the love of his parents, we cannot "earn" God's help or love (without which we cannot exist) because there is nothing we can do that will even slightly personally benefit God,

Psalm 50:7 ...am God, even thy God. ... 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. 10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: 15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

Even if there were any currency in which we might repay God, the cost would be staggering, because our hatred is so deep that loveing us has cost God dearly! Men hated God so deeply that they killed Him on the Cross; and our hatred is like theirs.

John 15:If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

"Grace" is one of Christianity's wonderful words. It means "gift". It means "charisma", that quality in someone that just draws others to him like flies to honey. It means "joy". Our salvation our deliverance from emptiness, depression, meaninglessness, lack of purpose, Hell cannot be accomplished by our own efforts alone; but by working with God. This point has confused people, so let me state it more carefully: our work, or our "works" as the KJV puts it, cannot "earn" us one drop of blood that Jesus shed for our salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

However, we must "work", as an aspect of our "Faith" our trust in God, Heaven's "therapist", to give us "counsel" for our own benefit, obedience to which will bless us..

James 2:What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

We must "work", not to "repay" or benefit God, but to benefit ourselves; this is God's requirement, not because God wants us to reward Him, but because God loves us and wants us to grow into Sons of God who will one day sit WITH HIM IN HIS THRONE! Try earning THAT!

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

==PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work==

What is more astounding than the research reported in the July 24, 2022 issue of [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain Psychology Today] is that '''Psychology Today admits it!''' And closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! Here are some unbelievable excerpts:

"First, you should realize that while antidepressants may work for you, they do not work for everybody, and we do not know how they work. Anyone who tells you differently is lying—to you or to themselves (or both).

"Second, if you hear a medical professional using the term “chemical imbalance” to explain depression, you are hearing a fictional narrative (or a sales pitch), not scientific fact. Look for better-quality care...."

"Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief....

"The causes of depression have been long debated, yet a common explanation holds that the culprit is “chemical imbalance” in the brain. This [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428540/#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20was%20approved%20by%20the,%2C%20%26%20Bymaster%2C%202005). notion] emerged, not coincidentally, in the late '80s with the introduction of Prozac—a drug that appeared to be helpful in treating depression by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin.

"Pushed [https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392 heavily] by the pharmaceutical industry, as well as reputable professional [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X#bib20 organizations] such as the American Psychiatric Association, this storyline has since become the [https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0735-7028.38.4.411 dominant narrative] with regard to depression, accepted by the majority of people in the U.S., and leading more and more people to think of their psychological [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X difficulties] in terms of chemical brain processes. Depression treatment, in turn, has leaned ever more heavily on antidepressant medications, widely touted as the first, and best, intervention approach.

"(The myth) provided clear answers for both physicians and their suffering patients—an elegant explanation of the symptoms and a readily available remedy in pill form; pharma companies made money." But it was soon discovered that the pills are "[https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-5341-3-14 less effective] than once hoped and advertised. About [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091023163346.htm half] of patients get no relief from these medications", and there are "distressing side effects".

"[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30385-3/fulltext [R]esearch] has shown that drug effects are often no better than those achieved via placebo....

'''"A 2010 [https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/318293 review] of the literature summarized: 'Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy'..."

They knew 12 years ago! Where have you heard this admitted?

Psychology Today continues, with the study that triggered this article: "A [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 recent] (2022) exhaustive 'umbrella review' (a review of meta-analyses and other reviews) of this diverse literature by Joanna Moncrieff of University College London and colleagues examined the accumulated evidence in all the above lines of inquiry. The conclusions are clear: 'The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.'”

Not that anyone is ready to stop worshipping at the First Church of Psychiatry. "Lead author Joanna Moncrieff [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080145.htm said]....'One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people's lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.'"

The Bible offers a solid understanding of "adverse life events" and how "all things work together for good for everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose." Romans 8:28, KJV, CEV translations

CONCLUDING COMMENTS: What is more astounding than the research is that Psychology Today admits it and closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! For decades the ability of psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs to treat depresion has been one of the strongest arguments in defense of psychiatry! This gives me hope that one day hospitals and doctors will finally admit that covid vaccines and masks don't work. This admission has seemed for years as likely as "when Hell freezes over". As hard to comprehend as the Bible verses saying even the Devil will one day bow his knee to Jesus!

Romans 14:11 It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.” 12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.…

Isaiah 45:22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.

Zephaniah 2:10 This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts. 11 The LORD will be terrifying to them when He starves all the gods of the earth. Then the nations of every shore will bow in worship to Him, each in its own place.

==ADHD is NOT biological, solvable with chemicals==

Summary of [[https://www.theblaze.com/news/scientists-who-suggested-adhd-has-biological-basis-recants-conclusion After long suggesting ADHD has biological basis, scientists now make stunning admission]] by Joseph Mackinnon, April 14, 2025

There was a damning admission in New York Times Magazine over the weekend that may inspire new doubts about the credibility of the so-called experts advising the masses on matters of health, namely that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may not have a basis in biology after all.

That admission was not volunteered from some activist or critic but rather by the Dutch neuroscientist who apparently misled the world into thinking "A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain."

In a piece titled "Have we been thinking about A.D.H.D. all wrong?" Paul Tough discussed the correlated explosion of ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions in the 1990s — a trend, he noted, that was accompanied by criticism from parents and others concerned about the apparent campaign to load kids with methylphenidate and amphetamines.

"You didn't have to be a Scientologist to acknowledge that there were some legitimate questions about A.D.H.D.," wrote Tough. "Despite Ritalin's rapid growth, no one knew exactly how the medication worked or whether it really was the best way to treat children's attention issues."

Parents were right to be concerned.

Ritalin, Adderall, and the other highly addictive stimulants foisted upon hard-to-control American youths have a variety of undesirable side effects, both immediate and long-term.

In the short term, they can cause side effects such as bladder pain, bloody urine, an irregular heartbeat and palpitations, diarrhea, headaches, joint pain, trouble sleeping, confusion, agitation, seizures, and vomiting. In the long term, these drugs can apparently impact growth, dopamine regulation, and memory formation and retention and cause elevated blood pressure, psychosis, and mood disorders.

Tough noted that the medical establishment, already bullish on the ADHD craze, seized upon the initial results of the [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/205525 Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study]]. The study, published in 1999, suggested that Ritalin was effective.

While the children in their MTA study reported improvements after 14 months of choking down stimulants, after 36 months, their advantage had effectively disappeared such that they were expressing the same supposed symptoms as the comparison group. Years later, the same test subjects turned out to be an inch shorter than their peers.

The [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778451 well-documented]] overdiagnosis and overtreatment of ADHD in children and adults is troubling on its face but far worse when considered in light of Sonuga-Barke's understanding that ADHD diagnoses are purely subjective and effectively unfalsifiable; Swanson's admission that ADHD treatment doesn't help in the long-run; and Hoogman's admission that there is not a biological signature for the supposed disorder.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh [[https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1911576444066480371 noted]] in response to the New York Times Magazine article, "ADHD is one of the greatest scams in modern history. Millions of kids have been given mind-altering drugs on the basis of a lie. Now after decades — and after shouting down and defaming those of us who knew better — they're finally starting to admit it. It's infuriating."

=The Supreme Court Precedent calling psychotherapy Fake Science=

The Supreme Court [http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Junk%20Science%20Case.htm cited] a book by Karl Popper to explain its shift in its definition of an "expert witness". The book gives psychotherapy as an example of a pseudo-science, as it explains the difference between it and real science. This link is to my article summarizing the concepts of the book.

[http://saltshaker.us/AmericanIssues/ChildAbuse/Popper.htm Excerpts from Karl Popper's book]. The Court quoted this article by Karl Popper which explains why Psychotherapy is no more "scientific" than astrology, the race-hating theories of Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, or pagan myths.

[https://www.biri.org/pdf/articles/Psychiatry-False.pdf? Statements of top psychiatrists admitting that the various categories of "mental illness", each of which has drug companies scrambling to market to each category, have no objective tests to distinguish them from each other, or even to distinguish them from "normal". This article is by Jon Rappoport, whose website is NoMoreFakeNews.com.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-04-01T18:32:05Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me. [From here on, no more green script; just respond naturally without sarcasm or acting.]

Seriously, there really is a very strong Noninvolvement Theology in scripture. But not in the Scripture of Christians and Jews - not in the Bible. It's in the holy book of Hindus, the B'hagavad Gita. I want to read you a passage, but first let me introduce it, and beg any Hindu who believes this, to correct me if I misunderstand this. But what I see in this passage is a Religion of Apathy. A religion of having no goals, no desires, caring about nothing, not preferring wisdom over stupidity, health over pain.

I see in this religion the motive of suicide: determination to simply leave life behind, with all its responsibilities, challenges, pressures, seemingly impossible demands. Brain death is the goal of this religion. The goal of meditation is to drive every thought, every bit of intelligence, out of one's mind. This is the same goal of drunks and druggies: oblivion. A "high" that numbs you to anything that matters.

“The American Dream” is to succeed in great things, following great goals. Our constitution and laws protect our freedom to work hard and succeed. That is a big draw for immigrants from all over the world. It is a value unique to the Bible. Only the Bible calls us to set goals as high as mountains and then promises success. Matthew 21:21-22.

Hinduism’s Gita honors the opposite: we are supposed to “abandon all fruitive undertakings”. We are not supposed to do anything with the goal of being successful. We are not supposed to accomplish anything. We are not supposed to have any goals:

<blockquote>B’hagavad Gita, 14:21 Arjuna [the military commander] inquired: O my Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature? 25 The Blessed Lord said: He who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present, nor longs for them when they disappear; ''[ie. doesn’t prefer wisdom or intelligence over stupidity or insanity]'' who is seated like one unconcerned, being situated beyond these material reactions of the modes of nature, who remains firm, knowing that the modes alone are active; who regards alike pleasure and pain, and looks on a clod, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike, who has abandoned all fruitive undertakings ''[actions designed to “bear fruit”, that is, actions with goals; efforts to accomplish things]''--such a man is said to have transcended the modes of nature. 26 One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.</blockquote>

We are supposed to not care whether we become wise or foolish. We are to care no more for gold than a clod of dirt. Contrast that with:

Proverbs 3:13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. 15 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. 16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

I perceive Noninvolvement Theology as not just contrary to the Bible but as spiritual suicide. By that I mean that spiritual death is not just its effect, but is its conscious goal. To embrace Noninvolvement Theology is to want to spiritually die; and Noninvolvement Theology is the dagger by which Christians spiritually kill themselves, deliberately.

----

:It's much easier to con someone than to convince them that they've been conned.

:Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces, heals ignorance.

Hopium.

Here is a song by John Lennon, inspired by the Hindu quest for absolute apathy, or spiritual death. In order to rescue it from being quite so stupid, I have put alternate phrases in brackets:

'''Imagine''' 1975
John Lennon
Explicit
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try [You're stupid if you try]
No Hell below us
Above us only sky [d'you want to spiritually die?]
Imagine all the people livin' for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah [for which they'll pay]

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do [that's one thing dumb people do]
Nothin' to kill or die for [nothing to live or die for]
And no religion, too [no right or wrong to restrain you]
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace [living without goals]
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo [dead souls]

You may say I'm a dreamer [I am certifiably crazy]
But I'm not the only one [and I'm not the only one]
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be one [and the whole world will be dumb]

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can [big brother has it all]
No need for greed or hunger [Don't think about complaining]
A brotherhood of man ['cause that would be your downfall]
Imagine all the people sharin' all the world [equal slaves of Antichrist]
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality?

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-04-01T16:38:23Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me. [From here on, no more green script; just respond naturally without sarcasm or acting.]

Seriously, there really is a very strong Noninvolvement Theology in scripture. But not in the Scripture of Christians and Jews - not in the Bible. It's in the holy book of Hindus, the B'hagavad Gita. I want to read you a passage, but first let me introduce it, and beg any Hindu who believes this, to correct me if I misunderstand this. But what I see in this passage is a Religion of Apathy. A religion of having no goals, no desires, caring about nothing, not preferring wisdom over stupidity, health over pain.

I see in this religion the motive of suicide: determination to simply leave life behind, with all its responsibilities, challenges, pressures, seemingly impossible demands. Brain death is the goal of this religion. The goal of meditation is to drive every thought, every bit of intelligence, out of one's mind. This is the same goal of drunks and druggies: oblivion. A "high" that numbs you to anything that matters.

“The American Dream” is to succeed in great things, following great goals. Our constitution and laws protect our freedom to work hard and succeed. That is a big draw for immigrants from all over the world. It is a value unique to the Bible. Only the Bible calls us to set goals as high as mountains and then promises success. Matthew 21:21-22.

Hinduism’s Gita honors the opposite: we are supposed to “abandon all fruitive undertakings”. We are not supposed to do anything with the goal of being successful. We are not supposed to accomplish anything. We are not supposed to have any goals:

<blockquote>B’hagavad Gita, 14:21 Arjuna [the military commander] inquired: O my Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature? 25 The Blessed Lord said: He who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present, nor longs for them when they disappear; ''[ie. doesn’t prefer wisdom or intelligence over stupidity or insanity]'' who is seated like one unconcerned, being situated beyond these material reactions of the modes of nature, who remains firm, knowing that the modes alone are active; who regards alike pleasure and pain, and looks on a clod, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike, who has abandoned all fruitive undertakings ''[actions designed to “bear fruit”, that is, actions with goals; efforts to accomplish things]''--such a man is said to have transcended the modes of nature. 26 One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.</blockquote>

We are supposed to not care whether we become wise or foolish. We are to care no more for gold than a clod of dirt. Contrast that with:

Proverbs 3:13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. 15 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. 16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

I perceive Noninvolvement Theology as not just contrary to the Bible but as spiritual suicide. By that I mean that spiritual death is not just its effect, but is its conscious goal. To embrace Noninvolvement Theology is to want to spiritually die; and Noninvolvement Theology is the dagger by which Christians spiritually kill themselves, deliberately.

It's much easier to con someone than to convince them that they've been conned.

Hopium.

Imagine 1975
John Lennon
Explicit
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try You're stupid if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky Do you want to spiritually die?
Imagine all the people livin' for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah for which they'll pay

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do that's one thing dumb people do
Nothin' to kill or die for nothing to live or die for
And no religion, too no right or wrong to restrain you
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace living without goals
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo dead souls

You may say I'm a dreamer I am certifiably crazy
But I'm not the only one and I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be one and the whole world will be dumb

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can big brother has it all
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharin' all the world
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Blaming others
Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces ignorance. Heals

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-04-01T15:17:17Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me. [From here on, no more green script; just respond naturally without sarcasm or acting.]

Seriously, there really is a very strong Noninvolvement Theology in scripture. But not in the Scripture of Christians and Jews - not in the Bible. It's in the holy book of Hindus, the B'hagavad Gita. I want to read you a passage, but first let me introduce it, and beg any Hindu who believes this, to correct me if I misunderstand this. But what I see in this passage is a Religion of Apathy. A religion of having no goals, no desires, caring about nothing, not preferring wisdom over stupidity, health over pain.

I see in this religion the motive of suicide: determination to simply leave life behind, with all its responsibilities, challenges, pressures, seemingly impossible demands. Brain death is the goal of this religion. The goal of meditation is to drive every thought, every bit of intelligence, out of one's mind. This is the same goal of drunks and druggies: oblivion. A "high" that numbs you to anything that matters.

“The American Dream” is to succeed in great things, following great goals. Our constitution and laws protect our freedom to work hard and succeed. That is a big draw for immigrants from all over the world. It is a value unique to the Bible. Only the Bible calls us to set goals as high as mountains and then promises success. Matthew 21:21-22.

Hinduism’s Gita honors the opposite: we are supposed to “abandon all fruitive undertakings”. We are not supposed to do anything with the goal of being successful. We are not supposed to accomplish anything. We are not supposed to have any goals:

<blockquote>B’hagavad Gita, 14:21 Arjuna [the military commander] inquired: O my Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature? 25 The Blessed Lord said: He who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present, nor longs for them when they disappear; ''[ie. doesn’t prefer wisdom or intelligence over stupidity or insanity]'' who is seated like one unconcerned, being situated beyond these material reactions of the modes of nature, who remains firm, knowing that the modes alone are active; who regards alike pleasure and pain, and looks on a clod, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike, who has abandoned all fruitive undertakings ''[actions designed to “bear fruit”, that is, actions with goals; efforts to accomplish things]''--such a man is said to have transcended the modes of nature. 26 One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.</blockquote>

We are supposed to not care whether we become wise or foolish. We are to care no more for gold than a clod of dirt. Contrast that with:

Proverbs 3:13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. 15 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. 16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

I perceive Noninvolvement Theology as not just contrary to the Bible but as spiritual suicide. By that I mean that spiritual death is not just its effect, but is its conscious goal. To embrace Noninvolvement Theology is to want to spiritually die; and Noninvolvement Theology is the dagger by which Christians spiritually kill themselves, deliberately.

It's much easier to con someone than to convince them that they've been conned.

Hopium.

Imagine 1975
John Lennon
Explicit
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try You're stupid if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky Do you want to spiritually die?
Imagine all the people livin' for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah for which they'll pay

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do that's what dumb people do
Nothin' to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharin' all the world
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Blaming others
Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces ignorance. Heals

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-04-01T15:09:29Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me. [From here on, no more green script; just respond naturally without sarcasm or acting.]

Seriously, there really is a very strong Noninvolvement Theology in scripture. But not in the Scripture of Christians and Jews - not in the Bible. It's in the holy book of Hindus, the B'hagavad Gita. I want to read you a passage, but first let me introduce it, and beg any Hindu who believes this, to correct me if I misunderstand this. But what I see in this passage is a Religion of Apathy. A religion of having no goals, no desires, caring about nothing, not preferring wisdom over stupidity, health over pain.

I see in this religion the motive of suicide: determination to simply leave life behind, with all its responsibilities, challenges, pressures, seemingly impossible demands. Brain death is the goal of this religion. The goal of meditation is to drive every thought, every bit of intelligence, out of one's mind. This is the same goal of drunks and druggies: oblivion. A "high" that numbs you to anything that matters.

“The American Dream” is to succeed in great things, following great goals. Our constitution and laws protect our freedom to work hard and succeed. That is a big draw for immigrants from all over the world. It is a value unique to the Bible. Only the Bible calls us to set goals as high as mountains and then promises success. Matthew 21:21-22.

Hinduism’s Gita honors the opposite: we are supposed to “abandon all fruitive undertakings”. We are not supposed to do anything with the goal of being successful. We are not supposed to accomplish anything. We are not supposed to have any goals:

<blockquote>B’hagavad Gita, 14:21 Arjuna [the military commander] inquired: O my Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature? 25 The Blessed Lord said: He who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present, nor longs for them when they disappear; ''[ie. doesn’t prefer wisdom or intelligence over stupidity or insanity]'' who is seated like one unconcerned, being situated beyond these material reactions of the modes of nature, who remains firm, knowing that the modes alone are active; who regards alike pleasure and pain, and looks on a clod, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike, who has abandoned all fruitive undertakings ''[actions designed to “bear fruit”, that is, actions with goals; efforts to accomplish things]''--such a man is said to have transcended the modes of nature. 26 One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.</blockquote>

We are supposed to not care whether we become wise or foolish. We are to care no more for gold than a clod of dirt. Contrast that with:

Proverbs 3:13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. 15 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. 16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

I perceive Noninvolvement Theology as not just contrary to the Bible but as spiritual suicide. By that I mean that spiritual death is not just its effect, but is its conscious goal. To embrace Noninvolvement Theology is to want to spiritually die; and Noninvolvement Theology is the dagger by which Christians spiritually kill themselves, deliberately.

It's much easier to con someone than to convince them that they've been conned.

Hopium.

Imagine 1975
John Lennon
Explicit
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try You're stupid if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky Do you want to spiritually die?
Imagine all the people livin' for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothin' to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharin' all the world
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Blaming others
Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces ignorance. Heals

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-31T03:00:09Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

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|[[Begin!]]
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|}

What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me. [From here on, no more green script; just respond naturally without sarcasm or acting.]

Seriously, there really is a very strong Noninvolvement Theology in scripture. But not in the Scripture of Christians and Jews - not in the Bible. It's in the holy book of Hindus, the B'hagavad Gita. I want to read you a passage, but first let me introduce it, and beg any Hindu who believes this, to correct me if I misunderstand this. But what I see in this passage is a Religion of Apathy. A religion of having no goals, no desires, caring about nothing, not preferring wisdom over stupidity, health over pain.

I see in this religion the motive of suicide: determination to simply leave life behind, with all its responsibilities, challenges, pressures, seemingly impossible demands. Brain death is the goal of this religion. The goal of meditation is to drive every thought, every bit of intelligence, out of one's mind. This is the same goal of drunks and druggies: oblivion. A "high" that numbs you to anything that matters.

“The American Dream” is to succeed in great things, following great goals. Our constitution and laws protect our freedom to work hard and succeed. That is a big draw for immigrants from all over the world. It is a value unique to the Bible. Only the Bible calls us to set goals as high as mountains and then promises success. Matthew 21:21-22.

Hinduism’s Gita honors the opposite: we are supposed to “abandon all fruitive undertakings”. We are not supposed to do anything with the goal of being successful. We are not supposed to accomplish anything. We are not supposed to have any goals:
B’hagavad Gita, 14:21 Arjuna [the military commander] inquired: O my Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature? 25 The Blessed Lord said: He who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present, nor longs for them when they disappear; [ie. doesn’t prefer wisdom or intelligence over stupidity or insanity] who is seated like one unconcerned, being situated beyond these material reactions of the modes of nature, who remains firm, knowing that the modes alone are active; who regards alike pleasure and pain, and looks on a clod, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike, who has abandoned all fruitive undertakings [actions designed to “bear fruit”, that is, actions with goals; efforts to accomplish things]--such a man is said to have transcended the modes of nature. 26 One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.

We are supposed to not care whether we become wise or foolish. We are to care no more for gold than a clod of dirt. Contrast that with:

Proverbs 3:13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. 15 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. 16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

It's much easier to con someone than to convince them that they've been conned.

Hopium.

Imagine 1975
John Lennon
Explicit
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people livin' for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothin' to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharin' all the world
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Blaming others
Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces ignorance. Heals

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-31T00:46:00Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

{| class="wikitable"
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|[[Offer]]
|[[Partners]]
|[[Rules]]
|[[Tips]]
|[[FAQ]]
|[[Begin!]]
|[https://family-music-center.square.site Donate]
|}

What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me. [From here on, no more green script; just respond naturally without sarcasm or acting.]

Seriously, there really is a very strong Noninvolvement Theology in scripture. But not in the Scripture of Christians and Jews - not in the Bible. It's in the holy book of Hindus, the B'hagavad Gita. I want to read you a passage, but first let me introduce it, and beg any Hindu who believes this, to correct me if I misunderstand this. But what I see in this passage is a Religion of Apathy. A religion of having no goals, no desires, caring about nothing, not preferring wisdom over stupidity, health over pain.

I see in this religion the motive of suicide: determination to simply leave life behind, with all its responsibilities, challenges, pressures, seemingly impossible demands. Brain death is the goal of this religion. The goal of meditation is to drive every thought, every bit of intelligence, out of one's mind. This is the same goal of drunks and druggies: oblivion. A "high" that numbs you to anything that matters.

It's much easier to con someone than to convince them that they've been conned.

Hopium.

Imagine 1975
John Lennon
Explicit
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people livin' for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothin' to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharin' all the world
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Blaming others
Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces ignorance. Heals

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T23:32:38Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

{| class="wikitable"
|[[Forum]] (Articles)
|[[Offer]]
|[[Partners]]
|[[Rules]]
|[[Tips]]
|[[FAQ]]
|[[Begin!]]
|[https://family-music-center.square.site Donate]
|}

What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me. [From here on, no more green script; just respond naturally without sarcasm or acting.]

Seriously, there really is a very strong Noninvolvement Theology in scripture. But not in the Scripture of Christians and Jews - not in the Bible. It's in the holy book of Hindus, the B'hagavad Gita. I want to read you a passage, but first let me introduce it, and beg any Hindu who believes this, to correct me if I misunderstand this. But what I see in this passage is a Religion of Apathy. A religion of having no goals, no desires, caring about nothing, not preferring wisdom over stupidity, health over pain.

I see in this religion the motive of suicide: determination to simply leave life behind, with all its responsibilities, challenges, pressures, seemingly impossible demands. Brain death is the goal of this religion. The goal of meditation is to drive every thought, every bit of intelligence, out of one's mind. This is the same goal of drunks and druggies: oblivion. A "high" that numbs you to anything that matters.

Imagine 1975
John Lennon
Explicit
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people livin' for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothin' to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharin' all the world
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Blaming others
Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces ignorance. Heals

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T23:23:38Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

{| class="wikitable"
|[[Forum]] (Articles)
|[[Offer]]
|[[Partners]]
|[[Rules]]
|[[Tips]]
|[[FAQ]]
|[[Begin!]]
|[https://family-music-center.square.site Donate]
|}

What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me. [From here on, no more green script; just respond naturally without sarcasm or acting.]

Seriously, there really is a very strong Noninvolvement Theology in scripture. But not in the Scripture of Christians and Jews - not in the Bible. It's in the holy book of Hindus, the B'hagavad Gita. I want to read you a passage, but first let me introduce it, and beg any Hindu who believes this, to correct me if I misunderstand this. But what I see in this passage is a Religion of Apathy. A religion of having no goals, no desires, caring about nothing, not preferring wisdom over stupidity, health over pain.

I see in this religion the motive of suicide: determination to simply leave life behind, with all its responsibilities, challenges, pressures, seemingly impossible demands. Brain death is the goal of this religion. The goal of meditation is to drive every thought, every bit of intelligence, out of one's mind. This is the same goal of drunks and druggies: oblivion. A "high" that numbs you to anything that matters.

Blaming others
Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces ignorance. Heals

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T21:34:26Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

{| class="wikitable"
|[[Forum]] (Articles)
|[[Offer]]
|[[Partners]]
|[[Rules]]
|[[Tips]]
|[[FAQ]]
|[[Begin!]]
|[https://family-music-center.square.site Donate]
|}

What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should have no help from the Bible to identify what actions are abominations, leaving politics to stagger like a drunk on ice?

Separation of Church and State.

So Christians should censor God in those forums where voters decide whether to conform our laws to the principles of Heaven or of Hell?

You're confusing me.

Blaming others
Validating ignorance is easier and more immediately successful than articulating truth that persuades, dispels, displaces ignorance. Heals

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T18:51:25Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

{| class="wikitable"
|[[Forum]] (Articles)
|[[Offer]]
|[[Partners]]
|[[Rules]]
|[[Tips]]
|[[FAQ]]
|[[Begin!]]
|[https://family-music-center.square.site Donate]
|}

What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might ''hear'' the Bible and be ''offended'' and ''not come to church.''

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, and pass laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime.That's wrong for the same reason the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools: the Court was concerned that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should stagger like a drunk on wet ice without allowing the Bible to identify what actions are abominations?

Separation of Church and State. If

Christians should not grow spiritually by applying their theology where it is needed, and politicians should not allow their policies to be influenced by morality.

Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T15:01:28Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

{| class="wikitable"
|[[Forum]] (Articles)
|[[Offer]]
|[[Partners]]
|[[Rules]]
|[[Tips]]
|[[FAQ]]
|[[Begin!]]
|[https://family-music-center.square.site Donate]
|}

What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might hear the Bible and be offended and not come to church.

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, passing laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. The Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools out of concern that posting them might influence impressionable children to want to ''obey'' them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should stagger like a drunk on wet ice without allowing the Bible to identify what actions are abominations?



Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T10:23:00Z

DaveLeach:

This is the script for a video.

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|[[FAQ]]
|[[Begin!]]
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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

[to camera: "It's time, I think, to cover our ears."]

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

[Why is THAT funny? He was right!]

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. [Well, but...]

Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our lifestyle sand votes . [But that's because....]

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts: ["Gospel" means "good news". Tracts don't report ALL the good news!]

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

[What? How can light get dirty?]

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. [That IS what the word MEANS.]

But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

[But "The Gospel" is the whole Bible!]

Now some people DO choose to go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. [Excuse me, how much did you say you are paying me to sit and listen to this horse radish?]

But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. [Finally, something that makes sense.]

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - [wait a minute] and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. [Well....] Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure. [Yes it is. I think.]

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. [That's true enough. They ''wouldn't'' come.]

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. [(repeat slowly) "Church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils. I think you mean church members helping each other shine light on abominations outside the church. So you're right. I don't see THAT in the Bible."

----
(Static interrupts video screen; then picture resumes)

(Sniffs air) Something smells bad. Has my twin brother been here?

He just left. Just when he was starting to make sense. I've been thinking about it. He was explaining why you can't mix politics and religion.

Because religion is where you blame other people for being wicked, quoting Bible verses against them. But not outside church where wicked people might hear the Bible and be offended and not come to church.

And politics is where you blame other people for committing crimes, passing laws against them. But you can't quote Bible verses in politics. It's against the Constitution. It might influence what voters think is a crime. In fact I read once that when the Supreme Court took the 10 Commandments out of schools, their concern was that posting them in schools might influence impressionable children to want to obey them.

So you're saying Christian churches should say nothing about the abominations dragging America towards Hell, and politics should stagger like a drunk on wet soapy ice without a spiritual guide to what actions are abominations.



Should not hear from the Bible
But other religions
Hearing from the Bible isn't forcing, coercing

pass laws against bad people

And politics is where you

You are allowed to quote Bible verses in church, but not in politics.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans]. Edited April 1, 2025.

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T09:58:28Z

DaveLeach:

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T09:33:08Z

DaveLeach:

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T03:15:10Z

DaveLeach:

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T02:56:47Z

DaveLeach:

{| class="wikitable"
|[[Forum]] (Articles)
|[[Offer]]
|[[Partners]]
|[[Rules]]
|[[Tips]]
|[[FAQ]]
|[[Begin!]]
|[https://family-music-center.square.site Donate]
|}

What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

[look at me wide eyed]

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

[Aren't we?]

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

[Moan, while hitting head with hand. ]

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

[That's a good verse. ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

[Start writing with a marker on paper. Hold up sign for camera during next sentence: "I don't know him", with arrow.]

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

[Well that's right.]

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

["Controversies"? That's not a Bible book!]

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

["Controversies" is not a Bible book!]

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

[Small wonder!]

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! [Stand up, stare, arms akimbo, mouth wide open]

Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! [Where do you get...]

All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

[YOU probably shouldn't. It could make your brain catch fire.]

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

[Shouldn't we?]

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 ["Denominations" isn't a Bible book!] "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

["Denominations" is NOT a Bible book!]

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our votes and lifestyles.

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts:

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

Now some people choose to do go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”.

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure.

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”.

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

----

SERIOUSLY

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T02:34:57Z

DaveLeach:

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our votes and lifestyles.

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts:

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

Now some people choose to do go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”.

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure.

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”.

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

----

SERIOUSLY

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-30T02:32:47Z

DaveLeach:

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. And it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! He got rid of it! Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a bunch of reading!''

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone all day. And I ''had'' bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

[I have a bad feeling that you are going to tell me anyway.]

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our votes and lifestyles.

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts:

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

Now some people choose to do go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”.

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure.

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”.

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

----

SERIOUSLY

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-29T20:13:30Z

DaveLeach:

{| class="wikitable"
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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. But it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a much of reading!''

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone. And I had bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our votes and lifestyles.

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts:

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

Now some people choose to do go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”.

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure.

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”.

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

----

SERIOUSLY

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-29T19:57:10Z

DaveLeach:

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. But it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a much of reading!''

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone. And I had bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our votes and lifestyles.

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts:

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

Leviticus 19:17 is right before the “love your neighbor” verse which Jesus called the Second Greatest Commandment. (Matthew 22:39-40.) It thus helps explain ''how'' God desires us to love our neighbors.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

Now some people choose to do go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even ''allow'' any reasoning, debating, or strategizing on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”.

Any "worldly" information, like how to talk to lawmakers about protecting babies or young girls or stopping satanic rituals at the state capitol, is "getting involved in politics" which Jesus didn't do - interaction with Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin doesn't count - and must be strictly prohibited in church. Anything that shows voters how to support laws that follow the principles of Heaven over the principles of Hell must be strictly prohibited in church. Blocking political information might leave members ignorant of how Satan uses government to sneak evil into church members' lives, but that is just the price of remaining pure.

We can't allow information about sin into church because then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”.

So you can see how important it is to keep up our Noninvolvement Theologies. “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

----

SERIOUSLY

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-29T18:38:51Z

DaveLeach:

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. But it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a much of reading!''

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone. And I had bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for NOT going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about their sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like protecting your constitutional right to murder your baby, or making girls take showers with men. Churches tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which fortunately doesn't include verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16. In fact, gospel tracts don't say ANYTHING about reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins we support with our votes and lifestyles.

Just one example of a verse that we don't have to pay attention to because it isn't in any gospel tracts:

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

Leviticus 19:17 is right before the “love your neighbor” verse which Jesus called the Second Greatest Commandment. (Matthew 22:39-40.) It thus helps explain ''how'' God desires us to love our neighbors.

You see, all those sins are what we call "the world", and Jesus' Kingdom is "not of this world", which means, at least TO ME, that I can't allow my light to shine in darkness because that would make my light dirty.

We are "ambassadors for Christ", we read in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and John 20:21.

:John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Some people get confused by that. They think "ambassador" means somebody who leaves his own country to go to another country, even an enemy country, to represent his own country. But we know from church that all we have to do is go to church and give money and believe the right doctrines. We don't have to talk to anybody outside - that simply doesn't appear in gospel tracts, so it isn't part of the Gospel.

Now some people choose to do go outside and do all that stuff anyway, but it is certainly not required. In fact if you want to remain pure you will stay right in church, and hopefully you will choose a church with 5 services a week, each of which lasts 5 hours. But the idea of talking to anyone outside, and especially about the sins all around the church, and especially about the darkest sins that government supports, why, no church should even allow any reasoning, debating, or strategizing with each other on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”.

The result being that church members ignorantly vote for government to support sin, and are not immunized against these evils invading their own lives and pulling them into Hell.

Is there a deeper darkness in America today than those sins our government now promotes? Like abortion, sodomy, divorce, or corruption in general? Yet that darkness is called “politics”, in which we are not to be “involved”, because if we did then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. According to these very widespread Noninvolvement Theologies, “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

Our responsibility to confront sin – to shine Matthew 5 Light – is not inconsistent with Matthew 7:1-5, which tells us not to judge except by the standard by which we want to judged. Warning is not the same as judging, and Jesus does tell us that the ''reason'' to remove our own sins is so we can see clearly to help others remove their sins.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-29T16:41:34Z

DaveLeach:

{| class="wikitable"
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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. But it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a much of reading!''

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone. And I had bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Ha ha! You know what a Christian told me the other day? He said "Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?" Ha ha!

Fortunately our churches bless us Christians with strong reasons for not going out into "the world" and telling people what God says about sins. Especially sins so bad that even government supports them. Like killing your baby, or dressing up your son like a girl.

for not reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins they support with their votes if not with their lifestyles. They tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which we define narrowly enough to exclude verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16.

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

Leviticus 19:17 is right before the “love your neighbor” verse which Jesus called the Second Greatest Commandment. (Matthew 22:39-40.) It thus helps explain ''how'' God desires us to love our neighbors.

The final phrase of v. 17 gives two purposes for confronting sin in our neighbor: not only to save ''him'' from sin, [as emphasized in translations like KJV, YLT, and BBE] but to save ''ourselves'' from ''complicity'' in his sin. [ie. ISV, JPS, GW, GNB, NIV.]

Ezekiel 3:18-20 explains our responsibility for the sins of others: to the extent we understand the consequences of their sins, and do not warn them, we are guiltier than they: we might have stopped them, but didn’t even try. Although their sins have tragic consequences, they sinned in ignorance, thanks to us. We who are rich and free enough to own our very own Bible can’t plead ignorance. Our access to the Word of God commissions us as “Watchmen on the Wall”.

Yet many churches are not merely ''unconcerned'' about shining, on sin, the Light of what God has to say about sin. Members are censored from reasoning, debating, and strategizing with each other on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. The result being that church members ignorantly vote for government to support sin, and are not immunized against these evils invading their own lives and pulling them into Hell.

Is there a deeper darkness in America today than those sins our government now promotes? Like abortion, sodomy, divorce, or corruption in general? Yet that darkness is called “politics”, in which we are not to be “involved”, because if we did then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. According to these very widespread Noninvolvement Theologies, “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

Our responsibility to confront sin – to shine Matthew 5 Light – is not inconsistent with Matthew 7:1-5, which tells us not to judge except by the standard by which we want to judged. Warning is not the same as judging, and Jesus does tell us that the ''reason'' to remove our own sins is so we can see clearly to help others remove their sins.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-29T14:13:05Z

DaveLeach:

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. But it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

Now look at that uncomfortable next verse:

:Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Not bear a grudge? Not avenge? What kind of God IS this?

Anxious to shake myself free of this error, I looked at the little print by the verse. The little print is "cross references", to other verses which, I hoped, would straighten out this verse. So that led me to Ezekiel 3:18-20. Wrong move! That verse is even worse:

:Ezekiel 3:18 CEV When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways so they won't be punished. If you refuse, you are responsible for their death.

This mistake creates a serious theological problem. Because it creates a contradiction with other Scriptures. Like for example, in the book of 1st Controversies, I think it's in chapter 14, it says:

:1 Controversies 14:29 Thou shalt not reason with those who disagree. Thou shalt hate them, dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.”

Well, those obvious mistakes really had me depressed for awhile, until it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. That's right, It wasn't a mistake in the Bible, it was MY mistake. And what a DUMB mistake! How could I have missed it?

''I had been reading in the Old Testament! Christians aren't supposed to read the OLD Testament! Jesus did that all away! Now we have a NEW Testament. And Christians don't even have to read THAT! All we have to do is say "I believe Jesus died to take away my sins" and we will go to Heaven! We don't have to do a much of reading!''

Still, sometimes reading can be kind of fun. A nice break from playing video games on my phone. And I had bought this new shiny Bible to carry into church and impress the pastor, so every once in a while it's probably OK to crack this shiny binding and see what it says inside. Although again I warn, be careful if you do.

But this time I had tape over the Old Testament, sealing it off so when I opened the Bible I would read in the New Testament.

I have mixed feelings about whether I should tell you what I found there one day.

It said we should be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge what we believe.

This time I didn't look up the Greek words in the Greek dictionary, because I have learned not to trust it.

Again, this contradicts other Bible passages, like

:2 Denominations 12:3 "if some pagan challenges your faith, just lob conversation killers at him. A good strategy is personal attacks; ignore his reasoning about your faith and instead remark about the wart on his nose or any other personal defect. That will excuse you from taking his arguments or questions seriously."

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God.

Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?

The way Absalom showed his hatred for his half-brother, for raping his sister, was by “speaking to him neither bad nor good”, practicing the “art of concealing [his] displeasure till [he had] an opportunity of a full revenge”, as Bible commentator Matthew Henry characterized 2 Samuel 13:22.

Our churches provide us Christians a welcome excuse for not reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins they support with their votes if not with their lifestyles. They tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which we define narrowly enough to exclude verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16.

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

Leviticus 19:17 is right before the “love your neighbor” verse which Jesus called the Second Greatest Commandment. (Matthew 22:39-40.) It thus helps explain ''how'' God desires us to love our neighbors.

The final phrase of v. 17 gives two purposes for confronting sin in our neighbor: not only to save ''him'' from sin, [as emphasized in translations like KJV, YLT, and BBE] but to save ''ourselves'' from ''complicity'' in his sin. [ie. ISV, JPS, GW, GNB, NIV.]

Ezekiel 3:18-20 explains our responsibility for the sins of others: to the extent we understand the consequences of their sins, and do not warn them, we are guiltier than they: we might have stopped them, but didn’t even try. Although their sins have tragic consequences, they sinned in ignorance, thanks to us. We who are rich and free enough to own our very own Bible can’t plead ignorance. Our access to the Word of God commissions us as “Watchmen on the Wall”.

Yet many churches are not merely ''unconcerned'' about shining, on sin, the Light of what God has to say about sin. Members are censored from reasoning, debating, and strategizing with each other on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. The result being that church members ignorantly vote for government to support sin, and are not immunized against these evils invading their own lives and pulling them into Hell.

Is there a deeper darkness in America today than those sins our government now promotes? Like abortion, sodomy, divorce, or corruption in general? Yet that darkness is called “politics”, in which we are not to be “involved”, because if we did then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. According to these very widespread Noninvolvement Theologies, “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

Our responsibility to confront sin – to shine Matthew 5 Light – is not inconsistent with Matthew 7:1-5, which tells us not to judge except by the standard by which we want to judged. Warning is not the same as judging, and Jesus does tell us that the ''reason'' to remove our own sins is so we can see clearly to help others remove their sins.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Shining "the Gospel" Outside the Bushel

2025-03-29T13:36:03Z

DaveLeach:

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What a refreshing solution it is for the world's problems, to be able to blame other people for them! Especially people who voted for the other political party!

As I was thanking God the other day for this blessing, I happened to open up my Bible - something I must warn listeners to be very careful about - and my eyes accidentally fell on something very troubling. The verse said I am supposed to ''correct'' those who create problems.

Well, I looked up the original word translated "correct" because I just knew the original word must mean "blame". We are supposed to ''blame'' those who create problems. And do you know what I found? Why, there was a mistake in the Hebrew dictionary too!

That mistake made the verse say we are supposed to “rebuke” them: talk to them – reason with them. And the next verse is worse: it says we can't correct other people in a spirit of contempt or arrogance, but in love; we can't be any harder on them than on ourselves. We have to love him as much as we love ourselves. But it is not “love” to leave a neighbor’s sin unchallenged any more than to leave our own sins uncorrected.

:Leviticus 19:17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. [“so that he may be stopped from doing evil”, it says in the Bible in Basic English ]

That is not a popular thing to do in America today – to reason with those who disagree. We are more inclined to hate those who disagree – even dehumanize them, and dismiss them with something like “it’s no use talking to you. You are never going to change your mind anyway.” 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to be “always ready” to reason with people who challenge our stands, but we are more inclined to lob conversation killers at them, like anonymous personal attacks that seem to excuse us from taking their need to know seriously.

A Pew Research Center [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/27/partisanship-in-u-s-isnt-just-about-politics-but-how-people-see-their-neighbors poll]said last week that about 30% of Americans say it would be harder to get along with a new neighbor who votes for the other party. 41% of Democrats especially have a problem “getting along with” Republicans who own guns, and 43% of Republicans especially have a problem “getting along with” a Democrat who doesn’t believe in God. Shouldn’t one who doesn’t believe in God be the very person with whom Christians should be the most anxious to communicate?

The way Absalom showed his hatred for his half-brother, for raping his sister, was by “speaking to him neither bad nor good”, practicing the “art of concealing [his] displeasure till [he had] an opportunity of a full revenge”, as Bible commentator Matthew Henry characterized 2 Samuel 13:22.

Our churches provide us Christians a welcome excuse for not reasoning with our neighbors – or even our own fellow church members – about the sins they support with their votes if not with their lifestyles. They tell us the only thing important enough to talk about in church is “The Gospel”, which we define narrowly enough to exclude verses about our responsibility to confront sin or to shine light in darkness. Like Matthew 5:13-16.

:Matthew 5:13 "You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 "You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

Leviticus 19:17 is right before the “love your neighbor” verse which Jesus called the Second Greatest Commandment. (Matthew 22:39-40.) It thus helps explain ''how'' God desires us to love our neighbors.

The final phrase of v. 17 gives two purposes for confronting sin in our neighbor: not only to save ''him'' from sin, [as emphasized in translations like KJV, YLT, and BBE] but to save ''ourselves'' from ''complicity'' in his sin. [ie. ISV, JPS, GW, GNB, NIV.]

Ezekiel 3:18-20 explains our responsibility for the sins of others: to the extent we understand the consequences of their sins, and do not warn them, we are guiltier than they: we might have stopped them, but didn’t even try. Although their sins have tragic consequences, they sinned in ignorance, thanks to us. We who are rich and free enough to own our very own Bible can’t plead ignorance. Our access to the Word of God commissions us as “Watchmen on the Wall”.

Yet many churches are not merely ''unconcerned'' about shining, on sin, the Light of what God has to say about sin. Members are censored from reasoning, debating, and strategizing with each other on church property about how to shine their Light, together, ''outside'' their Matthew 5 “bushel”. The result being that church members ignorantly vote for government to support sin, and are not immunized against these evils invading their own lives and pulling them into Hell.

Is there a deeper darkness in America today than those sins our government now promotes? Like abortion, sodomy, divorce, or corruption in general? Yet that darkness is called “politics”, in which we are not to be “involved”, because if we did then visitors who support these sins with their votes and lifestyles would be “offended”, and would not come to church where they would hear (what’s left of) “the Gospel”. According to these very widespread Noninvolvement Theologies, “The Gospel” excludes any church-associated corporate response to the darkest evils.

Our responsibility to confront sin – to shine Matthew 5 Light – is not inconsistent with Matthew 7:1-5, which tells us not to judge except by the standard by which we want to judged. Warning is not the same as judging, and Jesus does tell us that the ''reason'' to remove our own sins is so we can see clearly to help others remove their sins.

Conservative Republicans find comfort in blaming various people and groups. Like George Soros, Hillary, Obama, “The Establishment”, Michael Moore, “international bankers”, the Supreme Court, Bill Gates, Trump, etc. But haven’t these Noninvolvement Theologies censored more Light than any evil any of these liberals have ever attempted? Do you really think any of these people could hurt anyone – do you really think America would be in any danger – if God’s Light were not suppressed by these theologies?

Christian activists know how few informed, awakened voters it takes to heal government. Several national movements have struggled over the decades to achieve that awakening: groups like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority Moral Majority], [http://evangelismexplosion.org/ministries/center-for-christian-statesmenship/ Dr. D. James Kennedy], [http://www.cc.org Christian Coalition], [http://wallbuilders.com Wallbuilders], [http://theamericanrenewalproject.org American Renewal Project], and [http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues Focus on the Family].

The evil of these Noninvolvement Theologies dwarfs anything any liberal, Communist, or Moslem has ever attempted.

Yet shall we say pastors and church boards deceived by them are going to Hell?

We just can't. That would be crazy. This deception has embedded itself in otherwise very godly saints. The reality is that deception is part of being human, and we have much work to do to save those we love from tragedy.

We are not superior to those we attempt to rescue from deception. And not just because we have our own sins, although we, too, being human, surely have our own slices of deception from which we need rescuing by others. But the real reason we are not superior to those we help is because there is real greatness in them too. There is real silver under the tarnish.

It is easy to look at an evil slice of someone's life and conclude he must be bound for Hell. But the very best of people tragically have such slices in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 4:5 actually says God will judge our intentions – we need to wait, before we judge others, until God reveals everyone's intentions to each other – and when that happens, God will actually find something to praise in everyone!

Meanwhile the tragedy continues to unfold. Jesus counsels us to pray for the laborers to join us in the harvest.

:Matthew 9:37 Then he said to his disciples, There is much grain but not enough men to get it in. 38 Make prayer, then, to the Lord of the grain-fields, [KJV: Lord of the Harvest] that he may send out workers to get in his grain. (BBE)

[[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 17:53, 6 July 2016 (EDT) Also published at [http://ipatriot.com/shining-gospel-american-politics ipatriot] and [http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/shining-the-gospel-outside-the-bushel CafeConLecheRepublicans].

Central Iowa Freedom Forum endorsements

2025-03-21T19:01:49Z

DaveLeach: /* Jeff Kaufman, Chairman, Republican Party of Iowa */

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'''Launched March 25: A forum whose goal is interaction of 100% of the brainpower in the room - instead of the 1% in a room of 100 where only one person talks'''

[[File:TrustJesusTransparentSmall.gif|right]]      This article was started by [[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 19:18, 19 March 2025 (UTC) To help finish it:
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[[File:SinTiny.gif|center]]

=Jeff Kaufman, Chairman, Republican Party of Iowa=

“I share your vision of groups more focused on research together than on being entertained.” - 3/18/25 (From memory; if the words aren’t exact they are close)

=State Representative Eddie Andrews=

'''How a Forum could supplement statehouse research staff, enabling lawmakers to do their job better – Eddie Andrews'''

...And Dave started pondering, “wouldn’t it be neat if all these people who are trying to get you elected would start talking [together, in a forum] about different topics and not just stop [meeting, working] on November 5 [election day]. …I think Dave envisions a think tank to start talking about ideas going deep, and some ideas supporting candidates at the legislative level, at the congressional level, so that we [lawmakers] can be better informed. [So that volunteers would] still be active, and support their candidates in that way [also]. …I can tell you that one of the things [that makes it] difficult for people like myself, is we have…a great [research] staff….that helps us. But we don’t have a TEAM of staff….We rely on one or two people but we can only go so far. [On complicated issues they sometimes go] back and forth]. The more we can [bring in more brainpower] the better I can do my job. The better [Congressman] Zach Nunn [can do his job].

=Wes Enos, Deputy Chief of Staff for Congressman Zach Nunn=

'''Wes Enos: The “Good Works” that the Congressional Staff does, that a Forum could do'''

In my official capacity as Deputy Chief of Staff for Congressman Zach Nunn, ...We do a lot of case work. ...People running into issues with maybe their benefit isn’t being paid off properly. Maybe they’re having trouble getting a passport. Or just anything ...We try and go out and find as many people as we can who are looking for help with different things. We try and get other people connected to each other. A [web] of connections and we’re kind of in the center of it. We connect people with needs to people who can meet them. And our ability to do anything depends on our ability to build relationships with people…. somebody over here says I need this. Well, people over here, have the ability to do this. So we connect them together. We basically create a giant web of connections to get a lot of things done for people. Without [them] having to spend a dime or be able to do anything....We literally exist just to facilitate those relationships. It’s the way that government could and should be. [It’s the direction government is moving under Trump] and I’m excited for that.

[My comment: what a great description this is of what a Forum could accomplish for people!]

'''Another benefit of a forum: to keep Republicans passionate and active – complacency will cost us the next election'''

....The reason we struggle with mid-term elections is more about the average voter...to get out and knock doors and be a part of county convention [when our candidates win, get complacent and stop working, stop showing up at events] but the other side is demanding, fighting, ready to fight. Our side, “We’re good. We’re happy.” So we struggle to keep our people showing up. We struggle to make our people excited. We struggle to keep that fire that elected President Trump. We think things are fine.

But we can’t do that. Because the other side, they don’t think things are fine. They’re angry, and they are going to show up in big numbers. And if we don’t have groups of people who are deeply passionate and ready to show up and defend what we’re doing right now, they’re going to do a lot of damage. If they get control of the House of Representatives and God forbid they get control of the Senate, that’s going to be the end of Donald Trump’s presidency. They will spend everything they have in terms of political power to derail him. We will start immediately with investigations. We will start impeachment hearings. They will start with everything they can do to stop everything he’s doing right.

That’s what happens if we get complacent.

To keep this, we have to keep that fire burning. Because if we don’t, we go into a tough year. And we’ll lose what we just gained.

So I’m excited to be here. I’m excited that Dave wants county leadership helping keep this fire burning. Everyone showing up tonight despite a tornado warning. What a time to launch this group! Because without that fire burning, we’re all in deep trouble.

=Jeff Kaufman, Chairman, Republican Party of Iowa, 10 years ago=

10 years ago, January 3, 2015, I wrote to Chairman Kaufman. He responded:

To Dave Leach, May 26, 2015:

I have shared this idea and parts of this email with many people and candidates. Although most think it is a great idea, none were willing to put in the time and effort such a project would require. There are a few foreign policy organizations doing something like this and one “immigration organization” but no neutral entity that could handle the project as a whole. What is needed is a group like the League of Women Voters. I say like the LWV because that group as it manifests itself in most areas is quite liberal and biased toward the Democrats, but a group acting like the LWV should be acting.

As the presidential election heats up, it will be increasingly more difficult to have a “normal dialogue.” I am wondering if this wouldn’t be a good project for a graduate student or students. Again the key will be to find a neutral entity to monitor.

I wished I could be a more help. Between the caucuses, legislative races, raising over 1 miliion, and fighting off attacks on our candudates both from the left and within the party, RPI would not be the vehicle to make this happen, however, I like the idea and we would certainly be willing to endorse and/or sponsor such an activity.

Thanks Dave.

Jeff

===Background: ===

(I also had a conversation with Jeff about this after he spoke at the Westside Conservative Breakfast.)

Back then my vision, besides in-person meetings that appear to have finally begun March 14, 2025, was of an online forum. I first proposed it to Governor Scott Walker when he was running for president in 2015 in Iowa. Walker emailed me a survey that included spaces where we could write comments, in addition to the usual simplistic and biased multiple choice questions. What I wrote to Walker, I forwarded to Kaufman , slightly adapted; it was to that, that Kaufman responded.

The current Wiki initiative got a push in 2015, May 26, after I sent a proposal to Jeff Kaufman, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party. He responded several months later saying he had presented it to several candidates and political groups who would like to see it happen. This was my proposal then. It was actually a copy of a proposal I had sent to Governor Scott Walker who after dropping out of the presidential race had asked people to contribute ideas for “how to get America back on track”:

My proposal to Governor Scott Walker:

Your survey is a step in the right direction to getting America back on track, if as its existence implies, you have assigned people authorized by Governor Walker to read these comments, and evaluate them for clarity, accuracy, and importance, to give the best of them to Governor Walker.

A next step would be to authorize some response from Walker’s team informing the sender of enough of its evaluation for the sender to submit any further research, clarification, or correction as appropriate.

Yet another step would be to prepare a public report listing all responses and dialog in its appendix and featuring what Governor Walker feels are the best.
The final step would be to enable readers to interact with the final report by voting for best ideas. I would propose two guidelines for all to consider: no ad hominem attacks on anyone. (Wikipedia has an understandable definition.) And, no diatribes about evils whose existence lacks clear evidence. (An objective way of describing conspiracy theories.)

This would be a forum that would enable the Republican party to resolve a whole lot of division. It would be a way for Republicans to participate in a kind of ongoing Platform Discussion way beyond the very brief opportunity the party extends to a very small fraction of lucky Republicans at present. This would be well described as “a multitude of counsellors”, which Proverbs 15:22.says will guarantee success for, presumably, whatever the “multitude” can agree on. Everyday political experience confirms that to the extent people are able and willing to reach consensus by reasoning with each other in a fair forum, they are unstoppable. Obviously the size of this movement, or consensus-achieving “multitude”, is limited to the extent people with compelling information who must split from mainstream forums to share it. Conversely, as Lincoln quoted Jesus, a house divided cannot stand.

I began the SaveTheWorld wiki on April 8, 2018.

Back then, I wrote on the new site, commenting on the exchange with Jeff:

Without startup money, the best way I can think of to move to these purposes is through the Wiki proposed here. It will need, in addition to people contributing information, volunteers to discuss with each other, on a regular basis:

(1) what rules of order to implement, how to modify/apply them to meet challenges as they arise;

(2) how to physically set up forums. For example, wiki software vs blog software? Or both? Go-to-meeting software for discussion by the forum managers or some other means like conference call? Perhaps a wiki website with auxiliary website space where people can post their auxiliary information and articles free?

(3) Contacting individuals and groups to involve them can't succeed if it is Lone Ranger. There probably need to be contributions for ads, and wisdom where and how to place them. There needs to be expertise managing the website. I foresee three categories of participation, and contacts need to be made to get involvement in each category, and there should be wisdom in selecting who and how to contact, as well as the time needed to do it:

(a) People who love to debate, research, and interact respectfully with others;

(b) candidates and activist groups can use help researching issues old and new, and vetting claims. We can offer to research it as well as we can and give them our report. We will have a unique perspective that should be useful for many political purposes: a cross section of information from the range from expert to novice, but of people who are seriously and carefully trying to establish the truth.

(c) individuals with unique ideas who would like us to vet them and endorse their accuracy if warranted. Where do you see yourself in this matrix?
And of course a team is needed to judge whether boatloads of ideas like these are all horseradish.

Central Iowa Freedom Forum endorsements

2025-03-21T18:59:54Z

DaveLeach:

{| class="wikitable"
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'''Launched March 25: A forum whose goal is interaction of 100% of the brainpower in the room - instead of the 1% in a room of 100 where only one person talks'''

[[File:TrustJesusTransparentSmall.gif|right]]      This article was started by [[User:DaveLeach|Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa]] ([[User talk:DaveLeach|talk]]) 19:18, 19 March 2025 (UTC) To help finish it:
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[[File:SinTiny.gif|center]]

=Jeff Kaufman, Chairman, Republican Party of Iowa=

“I share your vision of groups more focused on research together than on being entertained.” - 3/18/25 (From memory; if the words aren’t exact they are close)

=State Representative Eddie Andrews=

'''How a Forum could supplement statehouse research staff, enabling lawmakers to do their job better – Eddie Andrews'''

...And Dave started pondering, “wouldn’t it be neat if all these people who are trying to get you elected would start talking [together, in a forum] about different topics and not just stop [meeting, working] on November 5 [election day]. …I think Dave envisions a think tank to start talking about ideas going deep, and some ideas supporting candidates at the legislative level, at the congressional level, so that we [lawmakers] can be better informed. [So that volunteers would] still be active, and support their candidates in that way [also]. …I can tell you that one of the things [that makes it] difficult for people like myself, is we have…a great [research] staff….that helps us. But we don’t have a TEAM of staff….We rely on one or two people but we can only go so far. [On complicated issues they sometimes go] back and forth]. The more we can [bring in more brainpower] the better I can do my job. The better [Congressman] Zach Nunn [can do his job].

=Wes Enos, Deputy Chief of Staff for Congressman Zach Nunn=

'''Wes Enos: The “Good Works” that the Congressional Staff does, that a Forum could do'''

In my official capacity as Deputy Chief of Staff for Congressman Zach Nunn, ...We do a lot of case work. ...People running into issues with maybe their benefit isn’t being paid off properly. Maybe they’re having trouble getting a passport. Or just anything ...We try and go out and find as many people as we can who are looking for help with different things. We try and get other people connected to each other. A [web] of connections and we’re kind of in the center of it. We connect people with needs to people who can meet them. And our ability to do anything depends on our ability to build relationships with people…. somebody over here says I need this. Well, people over here, have the ability to do this. So we connect them together. We basically create a giant web of connections to get a lot of things done for people. Without [them] having to spend a dime or be able to do anything....We literally exist just to facilitate those relationships. It’s the way that government could and should be. [It’s the direction government is moving under Trump] and I’m excited for that.

[My comment: what a great description this is of what a Forum could accomplish for people!]

'''Another benefit of a forum: to keep Republicans passionate and active – complacency will cost us the next election'''

....The reason we struggle with mid-term elections is more about the average voter...to get out and knock doors and be a part of county convention [when our candidates win, get complacent and stop working, stop showing up at events] but the other side is demanding, fighting, ready to fight. Our side, “We’re good. We’re happy.” So we struggle to keep our people showing up. We struggle to make our people excited. We struggle to keep that fire that elected President Trump. We think things are fine.

But we can’t do that. Because the other side, they don’t think things are fine. They’re angry, and they are going to show up in big numbers. And if we don’t have groups of people who are deeply passionate and ready to show up and defend what we’re doing right now, they’re going to do a lot of damage. If they get control of the House of Representatives and God forbid they get control of the Senate, that’s going to be the end of Donald Trump’s presidency. They will spend everything they have in terms of political power to derail him. We will start immediately with investigations. We will start impeachment hearings. They will start with everything they can do to stop everything he’s doing right.

That’s what happens if we get complacent.

To keep this, we have to keep that fire burning. Because if we don’t, we go into a tough year. And we’ll lose what we just gained.

So I’m excited to be here. I’m excited that Dave wants county leadership helping keep this fire burning. Everyone showing up tonight despite a tornado warning. What a time to launch this group! Because without that fire burning, we’re all in deep trouble.

=Jeff Kaufman, Chairman, Republican Party of Iowa=

10 years ago, January 3, 2015, I wrote to Chairman Kaufman. He responded:

To Dave Leach, May 26, 2015:

I have shared this idea and parts of this email with many people and candidates. Although most think it is a great idea, none were willing to put in the time and effort such a project would require. There are a few foreign policy organizations doing something like this and one “immigration organization” but no neutral entity that could handle the project as a whole. What is needed is a group like the League of Women Voters. I say like the LWV because that group as it manifests itself in most areas is quite liberal and biased toward the Democrats, but a group acting like the LWV should be acting.

As the presidential election heats up, it will be increasingly more difficult to have a “normal dialogue.” I am wondering if this wouldn’t be a good project for a graduate student or students. Again the key will be to find a neutral entity to monitor.

I wished I could be a more help. Between the caucuses, legislative races, raising over 1 miliion, and fighting off attacks on our candudates both from the left and within the party, RPI would not be the vehicle to make this happen, however, I like the idea and we would certainly be willing to endorse and/or sponsor such an activity.

Thanks Dave.

Jeff

===Background: ===

Back then my vision, besides in-person meetings that appear to have finally begun March 14, 2025, was of an online forum. I first proposed it to Governor Scott Walker when he was running for president in 2015 in Iowa. Walker emailed me a survey that included spaces where we could write comments, in addition to the usual simplistic and biased multiple choice questions. What I wrote to Walker, I forwarded to Kaufman , slightly adapted; it was to that, that Kaufman responded.

The current Wiki initiative got a push in 2015, May 26, after I sent a proposal to Jeff Kaufman, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party. He responded several months later saying he had presented it to several candidates and political groups who would like to see it happen. This was my proposal then. It was actually a copy of a proposal I had sent to Governor Scott Walker who after dropping out of the presidential race had asked people to contribute ideas for “how to get America back on track”:

My proposal to Governor Scott Walker:

Your survey is a step in the right direction to getting America back on track, if as its existence implies, you have assigned people authorized by Governor Walker to read these comments, and evaluate them for clarity, accuracy, and importance, to give the best of them to Governor Walker.

A next step would be to authorize some response from Walker’s team informing the sender of enough of its evaluation for the sender to submit any further research, clarification, or correction as appropriate.

Yet another step would be to prepare a public report listing all responses and dialog in its appendix and featuring what Governor Walker feels are the best.
The final step would be to enable readers to interact with the final report by voting for best ideas. I would propose two guidelines for all to consider: no ad hominem attacks on anyone. (Wikipedia has an understandable definition.) And, no diatribes about evils whose existence lacks clear evidence. (An objective way of describing conspiracy theories.)

This would be a forum that would enable the Republican party to resolve a whole lot of division. It would be a way for Republicans to participate in a kind of ongoing Platform Discussion way beyond the very brief opportunity the party extends to a very small fraction of lucky Republicans at present. This would be well described as “a multitude of counsellors”, which Proverbs 15:22.says will guarantee success for, presumably, whatever the “multitude” can agree on. Everyday political experience confirms that to the extent people are able and willing to reach consensus by reasoning with each other in a fair forum, they are unstoppable. Obviously the size of this movement, or consensus-achieving “multitude”, is limited to the extent people with compelling information who must split from mainstream forums to share it. Conversely, as Lincoln quoted Jesus, a house divided cannot stand.

I began the SaveTheWorld wiki on April 8, 2018.

Back then, I wrote on the new site, commenting on the exchange with Jeff:

Without startup money, the best way I can think of to move to these purposes is through the Wiki proposed here. It will need, in addition to people contributing information, volunteers to discuss with each other, on a regular basis:

(1) what rules of order to implement, how to modify/apply them to meet challenges as they arise;

(2) how to physically set up forums. For example, wiki software vs blog software? Or both? Go-to-meeting software for discussion by the forum managers or some other means like conference call? Perhaps a wiki website with auxiliary website space where people can post their auxiliary information and articles free?

(3) Contacting individuals and groups to involve them can't succeed if it is Lone Ranger. There probably need to be contributions for ads, and wisdom where and how to place them. There needs to be expertise managing the website. I foresee three categories of participation, and contacts need to be made to get involvement in each category, and there should be wisdom in selecting who and how to contact, as well as the time needed to do it:

(a) People who love to debate, research, and interact respectfully with others;

(b) candidates and activist groups can use help researching issues old and new, and vetting claims. We can offer to research it as well as we can and give them our report. We will have a unique perspective that should be useful for many political purposes: a cross section of information from the range from expert to novice, but of people who are seriously and carefully trying to establish the truth.

(c) individuals with unique ideas who would like us to vet them and endorse their accuracy if warranted. Where do you see yourself in this matrix?
And of course a team is needed to judge whether boatloads of ideas like these are all horseradish.

Central Iowa Freedom Forum endorsements

2025-03-21T17:49:58Z

DaveLeach: