April 1, 2011

Wisconsin Judge Makes her own rules

I would hope it doesn't matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat.  When the Judicial Branch rules that the Legislative and Executive Branches cannot pass a law, you should be offended.  Judge Sumi, in Wisconsin, is not ruling that the new law is unconstitutional... she's ruling that the law cannot go into effect because of the procedure being used to pass it.  Question, how can a judge rule on a law if it isn't in effect?  Answer, it cannot even come before the court because nobody has standing until the law is in effect.  John Fund has a nice article about this in the Wall Street Journal:

Legal analysts say it's preposterous for a judge to enjoin publication of a law before it has even taken effect, as citizens don't have standing to challenge a law until they are subject to it. In a similar case in 1943, the state's Supreme Court ruled that a judge had no such authority. In 1977, another state Supreme Court opinion reiterated that under separation of powers "no court has jurisdiction to enjoin the legislative process at any point." Rick Esenberg, an assistant professor of law at Marquette University, says he is "speechless" over the fact that Judge Sumi "has failed to articulate why she has the authority" to issue her ruling.

So just who does this Judge Sumi think she is (besides a tool of the unions and Democrats)?  It appears this is going to head to the Wisconsin Supreme Court which, as Fund says above, has already ruled twice that a Judge does not have this power.  What Sumi is managing to do, though, is delay everything long enough for a Supreme Court election, where the unions and Democrats plan to do their darnedest to buy a friendly judge onto the Supreme Court to break precedent with the past.  We shall see if the Wisconsin voters allow such foolishness to continue.

No comments: