Ad for ‘eLarmony.wrong’ Part of $800K Campaign that Helped Oust Iowa Justices
Spending on TV advertising in state supreme court elections totaled $12 million this year, with an unprecedented amount of money pouring into retention elections, including the election in Iowa that resulted in the ouster of three justices.
About $4.6 million was spent this year in high-court retention elections in Illinois, Iowa, Colorado and Alaska, more than twice the $2.2 million raised for all retention elections nationally from 2000 to 2009, according to a press release by the Justice at Stake Campaign.
Iowa and Illinois set records for the most expensive retention elections ever in those states.
In Iowa, voters ousted three Supreme Court justices who ruled for same-sex marriage in a race where $1.2 million was spent. Of that amount, $800,000 was spent against the justices, including $700,000 that came from out-of-state groups such as the Family Research Council and Citizens United. A group headed by former Gov. Robert Ray spent nearly $400,000 in support of the justices.
One of the Iowa attack ads featured a man and a woman in a commercial for “eLarmony.wrong” who were so glad they were able to marry, despite being brother and sister, because of the Iowa Supreme Court.
In Illinois, Justice Thomas Kilbride retained his seat after raising $2.5 million. The Illinois Civil Justice League raised $648,000 in an effort to defeat Kilbride. Opponents ran an ad attacking Kilbride as soft on crime, although the campaign against the justice was spurred by a ruling striking down caps on med-mal awards, according to the press release.
Bert Brandenburg, executive director of the Justice at Stake Campaign, criticized the ads in the press release. “In Illinois, special-interest money bought one of the most tasteless TV ads [that] ever appeared in a court election, while a sitting justice raised millions of dollars from plaintiffs’ lawyers and other parties who will appear in court,” he said.
