Well, actually, he only struck down two amendments on this score. The recent ballot had quite a few, but the only two he struck down were Voter ID and a constitutional limit on how high income taxes can go.
The amendments were backed by Republican lawmakers, and on Friday N.C. GOP Chairman Robin Hayes said in a written statement to The News & Observer that he thinks the ruling should be overturned.This judge, by the way, is very highly rated by Ballotopedia. His "Integrity and Fairness" score is 4.67 out of 5.
“These amendments were placed on the ballot and passed by an overwhelming majority of North Carolinians,” Hayes said. “This unprecedented and absurd ruling by a liberal judge is the very definition of judicial activism.”
The voter ID amendment passed with 55.5 percent of the vote while the amendment to cap the state income tax received 57 percent of the vote.
This is a hell of a ruling. By an exactly similar argument, no act of the legislature can be valid. The amendments are actually the most probably legitimate expressions of the will of the people, because the people have to approve them in a direct referendum. Even if you accept that the state's legislature is too heavily gerrymandered to be valid, if an amendment gets 55-57% of the popular vote, presumably it might pass a properly constituted assembly too.
Practically, of course, the judge isn't taking away the ability of the legislature to amend the constitution in ways that judges approve. He's allowing the numerous other amendments to stand. He's not even striking down the laws, which were only passed by this presumptively-invalid assembly.
This judge should be removed from office. However high his ratings, this is an unacceptable act of judicial supremacism. We do not have the right to govern ourselves as a people 'if and only if our superiors approve of how we do it.'
11 comments:
The referenda on the State Constitutional amendments were via popular vote; legislative districts are wholly irrelevant to this. The origin of the proposals similarly is wholly irrelevant to the will of the people as expressed in their State-wide vote.
Sadly, this isn't the first judge to insist that the citizens of a State have no voice in their own Constitution. A Federal judge, just a few years ago, struck down an Oklahoma Constitutional amendment--passed by some 60% of the citizens--that would have barred Sharia law from being used in State courts. Worse, the 10th Circuit upheld that travesty.
We're not getting enough textualist judges emplaced fast enough.
Eric Hines
It's also interesting to note that this judge, George Bryan Collins, Jr., was elected to his judgeship in 2012--by that same utterly gerrymandered electorate, albeit judicial districts are drawn (by the same legislature, as far as I can tell) differently from legislative districts.
Eric Hines
The Republic is dead. People are just waking up to it.
My rifle says differently.
He's set up a formally impossible position. The NC Legislature is supposedly too illegitimate to propose amendments to the People for ratification, so that even if it's something the People want -- the sovereigns, formally -- they can't have it because they can't be allowed to have it proposed to them.
Yet the only fix for this, the judge says, is to redraw the legislative districts. But that's done by the same legislature, and on a joint resolution basis -- i.e., with no input from the People, nor even the governor. There's no way a legislature that's too illegitimate to propose amendments to the People is fit to redistrict itself without any input at all.
Practically, of course, we all know the answer: the judge will deign to let the NC legislature redistrict itself, provided that they do so in a manner he approves. The state constitution envisions no role for judges in redistricting, just as it doesn't speculate on what degree of gerrymandering might render a legislature incapable of performing its constitutional duties.
This is a judicial power grab of breathtaking scale.
It'd be interesting to see the judge's reaction to being impeached by this legislature. "You can't impeach me; you're too gerrymandered to have any legitimacy."
Eric Hines
That's true. If he'd done it last year, the Republicans could have impeached and removed him without needing any Dem votes; but not this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Rifles are pretty good, Grim, but in the War against the Gods and Mortals... it won't be much use against the weapon that eroded and dustified Soddom and Gomorrah. Just saying.
IQ is increasing because the Divine Counsel has reserved some of the greatest souls and spirits for the Last Age of Mankind, the Latter Days in Christian lore.
That is countered by chem trails, asbestos, cancer, wifi radiation, high fructose corn syrup, and autism however.
In the Final Battle of the war against and with the gods, Grim... rifles aren't all that important. Effective against mortals and monsters, although I notice that Americans still haven't killed or hanged a single DC or Hollywood child rapist. Effective, but meaningless against evil.
Gall.
It'd be interesting to see the judge's reaction to being impeached by this legislature. "You can't impeach me; you're too gerrymandered to have any legitimacy."
That's exactly what West Virginia's Supreme Court just did in impeachment proceedings against its justices. They ruled the impeachment proceedings were unconstitutional. I'm pretty sure it's a gross violation of the canon of ethics to rule on a matter directly involving yourself, but who is going to hold them to account? The Bar Association surely won't.
The next move for West Virginia Senate should have been to ignore the ruling and proceed with the trial. On conviction, if the Justices refuse to leave, the State's legislature should have sent the Capital Police, or whatever they use for the purpose, and arrest the folks for impersonating Justices and put them on trial for that felony. In the mean time, they should have scheduled, and held, elections for new Justices. Instead, they chickened out and went crying to mommy, asking the Federal Supreme Court to intervene.
Eric Hines
I can't get past the idea that some actions of the gerrymandered legislature are OK but others are not. If the voters don't erupt over this, I guess they deserve it.
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