Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com.

A constitutional showdown taking shape in southern Iowa’s Decatur County could put taxpayers on the hook financially to defend the county’s efforts to silence a critic of public officials there.

The Institute for Justice, a national nonprofit law firm, wrote to Decatur County Attorney Alan Wilson last week expressing its concerns about Wilson’s recent threat to Rita Audlehelm that she could be sued for defamation for her comments in a letter to the editor published in the Leon Journal-Reporter.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriages. Proposition 8 passed by popular referendum in 2008.

Many links about today’s hearing and possible outcomes are after the jump. A separate post will cover tomorrow’s Supreme Court arguments in the challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.