Justices Jorge Labarga, James Perry on Hot Seat for Amendment 9 Rejection

A group called Citizen2Citizen, partnering with the Central Florida Tea Party Council, is campaigning against state Supreme Court Justices Jorge Labarga and James Perry this fall.

Labarga and Perry, who are up for retention votes Nov. 2, were among the justices who threw Amendment 9 (the Health Care Freedom Amendment) off the ballot.

In a news release, the "Restore Justice" campaign stated:

"These justices sided with the liberal political agenda of four Florida citizens having close ties to the Obama administration who filed suit in late June, alleging that three statements (comprising a mere 20 words) in the ballot summary were misleading, to thereby disenfranchise millions of Floridians desiring to exercise their constitutional right to vote on the Legislatures proposed amendment."

"Such partisan politics," said Citizen2Citizen founder Jesse Phillips, "is unbecoming of any judge, especially on the Supreme Court. Their role is to interpret the law and uphold our constitutional right to vote on legislatively proposed amendments, not to defend Obamas health care plan under the guise of protecting the voters.

"The fact of the matter is that this amendment was voted on by a supermajority of our elected representatives to constitutionally be placed on the ballot. And yet the court arbitrarily decided to ignore the Constitution and intent of the Legislature. This is a tremendous injustice and power grab by the court, which we have the opportunity to restore this November," Phillips said.

Florida law requires that Supreme Court justices face a merit retention vote by the voters every six years. Thanks to universal retention recommendations by the Florida Bar Association (which takes a leading role in judicial nominations) and limp newspaper editorials that parrot those recommendations, no judge has ever lost a retention election.