Welcome to Iowa Public Television! If you are seeing this message, you are using a browser that does not support web standards. This site will look much better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device. Read more on our technical tips page.

Iowa Public Television

 

Home » Video » Moyers & Company | Judicial Not Politics

  • Moyers & Company

Moyers & Company | Judicial Not Politics

Duration: 00:30
Program: Moyers & Company #140
Broadcast Date: Oct. 13, 2012

On this week’s Moyers & Company, Bill explores a judicial system under partisan attack. Thirty-eight states now elect their high court judges. Over the last decade, $200 million -- much of it secret and tied to partisan agendas -- has poured into these judicial campaigns. In Florida, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, for example, justices are being targeted by radical groups that abhor judicial independence and want the courts to reflect their own political biases.

In Iowa, a state whose judicial system has been praised for its fairness and impartiality, the political and religious Right ousted three justices in 2010 over marriage equality, and is now trying to take down a fourth over the same issue. But this time a bipartisan coalition called Justice Not Politics is fighting back. Its co-founders -- Democrat Sally Pederson and Republican Joy Corning, each of whom served Iowa for eight years as lieutenant governor -- talk with Bill about what's at stake when justices are at the mercy of partisan passions and money in politics.

Topics:

Post Date: October 11, 2012