Just as the leader of the House did on Friday, Iowa Senate leader Michael Gronstal says that his institution has no interest in pursuing a constitutional amendment enshrining discrimination into the state constitution:
There will be no debate in the Iowa Senate this session on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said Monday.
Gronstal, who lauded the Supreme Court decision handed down Friday overturning the state's ban on same-sex marriage, was asked by Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, if he would join with Republicans in crafting a bill to move an amendment forward.
“Eleven years ago, you voted in favor of protecting marriage as between one man and one woman,” McKinley said. “Will you pledge to work with me and craft a leadership bill on this important issue and bring it to the floor a vote by this body?”
In response, Gronstal shared a story about his daughter, Kate, telling a group of conservative men that opponents of same-sex marriage “have already lost” and that the younger generation doesn't care.
“I learned something from my daughter that day. That's what I see, Sen. McKinley,” Gronstal said. “I see a bunch of people that merely want to profess their love for each other and want state law to recognize that. Is that so wrong? I don't think that's so wrong.”
Good for him. This would mean the earliest an amendment reversing the Supreme Court's decision could pass is 2014.
The fact that both houses of the Iowa legislature support the Supreme Court's decision should create problems for assertions that the court's actions were "countermajoritarian" or "usurped" the will of the legislature. I suspect the answer will be a Ben Wittes-style shell game in which referenda are required to end marriage discrimination even in states where they're not part of the usual political processes, but the usual political process is certainly enough to create the discrimination in the first place. It was a specious argument in Massachusetts and it would be specious here.
--Scott Lemieux
