In a "historic upset," the three justices in Iowa up for retention elections were voted out of their seats following a well-funded campaign to remove the justices because of their decision to allow same-sex marriage.
The vote marked the first time a judge has lost a retention election in Iowa since the retention system was implemented in 1962, The DesMoines Register reports. In the retention system, judges who were initially appointed are subject to an up-or-down vote with no opponent.
"What is so disturbing about this is that it really might cause judges in the future to be less willing to protect minorities out of fear that they might be voted out of office," University of California, Irvine, School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, told The New York Times. "Something like this really does chill other judges."
Conservative groups in 16 states launched similar campaigns against judges, spending more on retention elections this year than was spent in the past decade, but Iowa was the only state in which the justices lost their retention election, The New York Times reports.