'Here's the Thing About Politics in the Courtroom': Mr. Iowa Nice Weighs-In on Judicial Retention Vote Tied to Gay Marriage Ruling

Iowa's judicial retention vote, which has been tied to the Iowa Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2009, just got "Niced."

That is to say, the vote is now the subject of a video short created by the makers of "Iowa Nice," and others in the viral "Nice" series.

Progress Iowa has released "Justice Nice," which tackles the push by outside interests to vote out David Wiggins. The Iowa Supreme Court justice was part of the unanimous ruling that blocked same-sex couples from marrying was unconstitutional, which in affect legalized gay marriage in Iowa.

"So, here's the thing about politics in the courtroom, it's a (profanity) idea," says Scott Siepker, who has starred in all of the "Iowa Nice" videos.

"I love politicians ... and I especially love it when they come into Iowa and tell us to kick out our Supreme Court justices just so they can make a name for themselves," he says.

The video is attached to this article.

Warning: Video contains some profanities.

Two years ago, three of the Iowa justices that ruled in the case, were ousted from the bench. Judicial votes are typically afterthoughts in election season, but not that year. That judicial vote brought in around $1 million in campaign contributions, largely from out-of-state contributors seeking to remove the judges as punishment for the same-sex marriage ruling.

This year, Wiggins is up for retention, and the campaign is heating up to remove him. Last month, dueling bus tours crisscrossed the state with one seeking Wiggins' ouster and the other urging Iowans to vote to retain him

"They are trying to to tell us that allowing same-sex marriage was a political decision. That tells you that they know as much about the Iowa Constitution as I know about Star Trek," Siepker says in the video. "Here's the thing about our Constitution, it kicks (profanity). Our Constitution says that a right belonging to one must belong to all. It's a slam dunk."

The "Iowa Nice" crew first made a name for themselves last year with a response to University of Iowa professor Stephen Bloom's much criticized Atlantic Monthly piece. In it, he questioned whether Iowa deserve to hold the first-in-the-nation caucus because, among other reasons, because rural areas are full of "the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth."

More recently, the crew released videos in support of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Iowa State Cyclones, and has been featured on ESPN.

Progress Iowa has launched a website in support of Wiggins, which can be found here.

“Politics in the courtroom is just a bad idea,” said Matt Sinovic, executive director of Progress Iowa. “We want Iowans to know what’s at stake in November -- if out of state special interest groups and politicians are allowed to intimidate our judges, they’ll become no better than your average politician. We have good judges in Iowa, and we can protect them by voting yes.”