Kids growing up in the U.S. today aren’t likely to remember a time when marriage between two people of the same sex wasn’t legal.

But that certainly wasn’t the case in 2009, when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Iowa’s limitation of marriage to opposite sex couples violated the equal protection clause of the state’s constitution.

The year after Varnum v. Brien, Chief Justice Marsha K. Ternus and justices Michael J. Streit and David L. Baker were up for a retention. All three were ousted from the bench by voters. Fueling the effort financially were social conservatives, in and outside of Iowa, who contended the court overstepped its constitutional authority.

Ed Ramsell of Des Moines always felt that effort was “really dumb” and an embarrassment for Iowa. “Virtually nothing was changed by voting the judges out except the judges now work in a different office and probably like it better,” he wrote the Readers' Watchdog.

Ramsell wanted to know how the three justices are doing now. He said that with another retention vote coming up Nov. 8 for the final three justices involved in Varnum, it might be a good time for analysis.

Ramsell is correct in his assumption that the justices survived just fine. All three are engaged in private practice, more well-known since the ruling that rippled around the world, but freer in their personal lives, two told me. (Streit did not return two phone calls seeking an interview.)

“It wasn’t devastating to any of us. It was a job,” said Ternus, who keeps in touch with Streit and Baker. “I loved the work, but it was a heavy burden. For 17 years, that job was all-consuming. For me personally, it’s been a gift.”

Gay marriage became legal in the 13 states that still banned it after a June 2015 ruling of a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court.

And public opinion shifted significantly: Most Americans, around 55 percent, now support same-sex marriage, compared with 37 percent who oppose it, polling from the Pew Research Center shows. Back in 2001, 57 percent opposed same-sex marriage versus 35 percent who supported it.

But Iowa’s Supreme Court retention battle, and similar votes after it around the country, did trigger something new. After 2010, partisanship factored much more in deciding the judiciary.

Ternus and Baker say the unanimous ruling in Varnum was correct under the constitution, but that didn't seem to matter in 2010.

“Am I going to beat myself up because a decision I made was right under law? No,” said Baker, of Cedar Rapids. “Am I disappointed politics were injected into the judicial branch? Yeah, I am. I don’t think politics should be injected.”

Ternus, who lives in Polk County and mostly advises other lawyers on cases, calls the recent trend of trying to politicize the judiciary harmful to democracy.

“Did people really think that we should have picked up the Bible to make that ruling and, if so, what version? … I didn’t take an oath of office for that,” she said. “Good jurists approach the law from a neutral place. When you start treating judges as politicians, it attracts a different kind of applicant to the bench. It’s a downward spiral.”

Spending to tip the bench soars

Special interest spending around the country suggests some groups are trying to whip up a tempest.

This November, 27 states including Iowa will hold elections for seats on their highest courts. Votes earlier this year suggest several will be dominated by special interest groups, many of which do not disclose donors, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law.

Iowa, like many states, uses a merit system to choose judges, meaning they are chosen by the governor and subject to voter approval every few years for retention. The system is the same for justices on district courts, juvenile courts, the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.