Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, September 15, 2006 2:44:24 PM
This is a building block post which I will likely use repeatedly because it sums up serious problems with the courts in just a few paragraphs:
------
In Colorado, the state supreme court declared the courts "a part of the legislative process" as they were justifying why they and not the legislature had done congressional redistricting as they struck down a redistricting bill that the legislature wanted to substitute for a court ruling. That will eventually be used as a precedent as the courts try to circumvent the democratic process and substitute their judgment for the judgment of the voters. The state supreme court recently took five months to decide a 40 word initiative consisted of two subjects when linguists couldn't find but one. Here in Colorado also, a term limits initiative is being run to limit the supreme court out of office because it is so openly partisan, and for no other reason.
Nationally, we have five justices on the US Supreme Court who seem to always be a part of really strange rulings that ignore the restraint that the Constitution placed on government.
I don't believe anyone has ever tried to educate the public as to how convoluted the logic used to strike down term limits was. The subject was discussed at the 1787 Constitutional Convention as part of the Virginia plan. A controversy that appears before the supreme court can't have a better pedigree than that, nor seemingly can the supreme court have an easier job than simply reaffirming the decision the founders made. That's not what happened! Eventually, I will write a series on that decision. It won't be pretty.
More recently, the same five justices were involved in Kelo and Hamdan. In both cases they knew they were skating on constitutionally thin ice, They gave the evidence themselves when they provided legislative escape clauses. Something is either unconstitutional or it is not, and legislatures, and for that matter the courts, have no power to make changes other than through the amendment process. Courts which make decisions granting legislative escape clauses are themselves trying to legislate.