But I predicted this. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Thursday he plans to ask the California Supreme Court to ease the state's budget gridlock and free up money for schools by ruling that a simple majority of lawmakers can pass a spending plan. The petition, expected to be filed early next week […]
Timothy Sandefur has written another nice summary of the legislating from the bench going on in Nevada. Check it out.
California's Prop. 13, along with having the effect of reducing property taxes, also required a 2/3 majority in order to pass a state budget. This requirement is one fo the primary causes of the state budget stalemate because, even in this Democrat-dominated state, there are enough Republicans in the legislature that a few of them […]
Today's Washington Times reports on a survey by the pro-abortion rights Center for the Advancement of Women that found that 51 percent of American women said the government should prohibit abortion or limit it to the narrow rape/incest/life-of-the-mother situations. In its last term, the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws and barred the execution of […]
Reading the New York Times editorial page is becoming indistinguishable from reading the pages of The Nation or Mother Jones or The American Prospect. Only in the land of the loony left does "freedom of expression" mean that citizens have the right to enjoy pornography in their public library. The Times complains that Internet filters […]
In a ruling that defies common sense -- and should surprise no one -- the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (the most-overturned court in the nation) has ruled that a bank robber who had a gun stuck in the waistband of pants should not have been convicted of "armed robbery" because he "didn't mean to […]
I heard Rush LImbaugh mentioning this subject as I drove into work, and then read the National Review Online article he was apparently referring to. Basically the idea to get the recalcitrant Democrats to stop their unprecedented filibuster of Bush judicial nominees is to use the recess appointment power -- but not in the way […]
The Wall Street Journal's Brendan Minter outlines the Democrats' case against Bush's latest court of appeals nominee, James Leon Holmes. Holmes, who received a "well qualified" rating from the liberal American Bar Association (once the "gold standard" according to Sen. Joseph Biden), has come under fire because of his personal views on subjects such as […]
From National Review's Jack Dunphy: [L]ike a favorite hymn learned in childhood, the words are as comforting as they are familiar: "The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, accordingly, is reversed."
While searching for information on the judicial nomination process, I came across a lecture given at the Heritage Foundation last year by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) When making their arguments the Democrats often like to compare unlike political conditions -- that is, Clinton's last two (lame duck) years to George W. Bush's first two years. […]