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Kansas Olligarch Governor ends independent Judiciary

Is that a serious question? It's on Daily Kos, so it must be true.

The Kansas situation is discussed in the Times article, not the Kos diary (though Kos has done one on it as well). The Times article includes links to original source material, including the American Bar Association article about the manoeuvre:

http://www.abajournal.com/news/arti...ing_off_court_funding_if_courts_strike_down_2

and

http://www.abajournal.com/news/arti...s_if_law_on_selection_of_chief_judges_is_over
 
In the aftermath of the TEAOP legal coup de tat/I] involving the WI Supreme Court (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...ollows-RW-Takeover-of-Wisconsin-Supreme-Court), Kansas Governor Brownshirt...excuse me, Brownback, has signed into law a bill that effectively allows him to shut down the courts if they rule against him.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-kansas-brownback-tea-party-20150609-story.html

How much more blatant does this fascist takeover of the US have to get before people really get fed up?


In thread title, did you mean Canis or Anus governor? (If you report your starting thread for needing a title fix, the mods will do that. I had to last week.........)
 
Citizens united was the right decision.

Except for some reason people still take issue at foreign speech(money) going to political figures. Clearly it needs to be broadened. Why should the buying of our politicians be limited to only Americans after all?
 
Except for some reason people still take issue at foreign speech(money) going to political figures. Clearly it needs to be broadened. Why should the buying of our politicians be limited to only Americans after all?

I agree. It should not be bases on citizenship.
 
Citizens united was the right decision.

Utter BS! No man should have more influence over the political process via money than any other man. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Remember? Also the 14th Amendment, which provides all citizens must stand equal before the law.

And since corporations are not persons in any way shape or form (another clearly wrong SCOTUS decision), they should have no political rights.

In thread title, did you mean Canis or Anus governor? (If you report your starting thread for needing a title fix, the mods will do that. I had to last week.........)

Oops...nice catch...thanks.
 
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We can't count on courts to do their jobs any longer. Look at the long series of clearly wrong SCOTUS decisions over the last 10 years or so (immanent domain, Citizens United, et al).

I'm highly critical of the present Court, but there has to be some allowances for people that just don't agree with you without crossing into this sort of despairing implications of illegitimacy . Rending one's garments at every conservative decision from a conservative court cheapens the outrage at something that is true garbage in any light, like Bush v. Gore.


Keep in mind that conservatives thinking along the lines of your post is the reasoning behind what is going on in Kansas. They don't see it as violating the living crap out of the horizontal separation of powers, rather as stopping a judicial body that they see as not doing their jobs properly.

Hopefully the Kansas Court stands fast, and the resulting mess will at least be interesting. My guess is it eventually ends with something like a 7-2 vote (Thomas and Alito dissenting) holding that the guarantee clause is both justiciable and requires an independent judiciary free of such directed funding threats. In the end, if nothing else, judges tend to circle the wagons when the power of the judiciary is at stake.
 
Since a major user of the judicial system is the business community, I'm surprised there hasn't been some noise from them about this bill. Or has there been?
 
Impeachment is for high crimes and misdemeanors.
I don't think "WAAAH I didn't get my way" counts.

Who gets to decide what are high crimes and misdemeanors? It's the legislature, right? A supreme court justice doesn't get to vote on impeachment at all, let alone his own impeachment.

In theory, the legislature has all of the political power since it can impeach anybody. In practice of course it is difficult for a legislature to muster the strong consensus required to act. And ultimately, the legislature is answerable to the people through the electoral process.
 
I'm highly critical of the present Court, but there has to be some allowances for people that just don't agree with you without crossing into this sort of despairing implications of illegitimacy . Rending one's garments at every conservative decision from a conservative court cheapens the outrage at something that is true garbage in any light, like Bush v. Gore.


Keep in mind that conservatives thinking along the lines of your post is the reasoning behind what is going on in Kansas. They don't see it as violating the living crap out of the horizontal separation of powers, rather as stopping a judicial body that they see as not doing their jobs properly.

Hopefully the Kansas Court stands fast, and the resulting mess will at least be interesting. My guess is it eventually ends with something like a 7-2 vote (Thomas and Alito dissenting) holding that the guarantee clause is both justiciable and requires an independent judiciary free of such directed funding threats. In the end, if nothing else, judges tend to circle the wagons when the power of the judiciary is at stake.

SCOTUS is not involved at this stage, nor do I think it ever will be. The legislature is clearly within its power to decide on a budget for the judiciary. Even if the linkage of the budget to the continued existence of another law is considered an unseemly act of bullying, it's still perfectly within the legislature's power. The remedy for such bullying is political, not judicial. If people don't like it, they can vote their legislators out.
 
SCOTUS is not involved at this stage, nor do I think it ever will be. The legislature is clearly within its power to decide on a budget for the judiciary. Even if the linkage of the budget to the continued existence of another law is considered an unseemly act of bullying, it's still perfectly within the legislature's power. The remedy for such bullying is political, not judicial. If people don't like it, they can vote their legislators out.

Tangent: I have been thinking of a post about separation of powers and a knee jerk assumption that it implies a more copacetic situation than actually exists. This argument that the legislature is limited in impeachment is part of that. If I put it up I would like you to post in it.
 
The Kansas situation is discussed in the Times article, not the Kos diary (though Kos has done one on it as well). The Times article includes links to original source material, including the American Bar Association article about the manoeuvre:

http://www.abajournal.com/news/arti...ing_off_court_funding_if_courts_strike_down_2

and

http://www.abajournal.com/news/arti...s_if_law_on_selection_of_chief_judges_is_over

You should have posted these links in the first place. Why post a link to the Daily Kos on a skeptics forum?
 
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