High court rejects Vt. campaign finance law (Alito & Roberts make the difference)

The AP via Yahoo! News ^ | June 26, 2006 | Toni Locy

[tflabo]

"I wonder how strong Ginsburg would be as a justice without Stevens backing her up".

Factor that weasel Souter into this equation. Buzzy and the turncoat weasel boy are a team....Stevens the old geezer like Murtha has to go.

[maine-iac7]

That's okay as a personality trait AS LONG AS you don't sit on the Supreme Court!

Personality trait or socialist blood in the veins?

[KOZ.]

can you briefly remind me what the two decisions were about? which was 5-4 and which was 7-2?
thanks.
koz.

[Christian4Bush]

can you briefly remind me what the two decisions were about? which was 5-4 and which was 7-2? thanks. koz.

This is from Wikipedia...the nonbiased part of it, though I am inviting anyone who has a better explanation (while keeping it simple) to pass it along to you. It's the best I could do in such a short time. Hope it helps. My point was that mostly what you hear is the 5-4 vote, "along partisan lines"....rarely, if ever, is the "Seven justices strongly agree" part.

The Court voted 7–2 to end the recount on the grounds that differing standards in different counties constituted an equal protection violation, and 5–4 that no new recount with uniform standards could be conducted.

[KOZ.]

thanks, thats what i was looking for.
goodnight!

[Christian4Bush]

thanks, thats what i was looking for. goodnight!<

cool. for more details, there were probably some good threads going on here, around the time of those two decisions. i wasn't a FReeper yet, but i guarantee i was giddy with happiness that Gore's attempted coup had failed.

good night to you also.

[monkeyshine]

Well, this excerpt sounds a bit absurd. I mean, now the SC is going to decide how much is enough? Will they put a cost of living increase on it, too?

Once they let campaign contributions get capped, they crossed this line. They should have either reversed the prior ruling or upheld the state law which would have led to getting money out of politics entirely - either of which I could support. But the limits I cannot. It's all or nothing as far as I'm concerned on this issue.

[Candor7]

Vermonter Here! This is great NEWS and it will make the DEMS HOWL as we go into the primaries and election this fall, The Dems were counting on silencing many of their detractors. Now we can go up one side of 'em and down the other, right on up until election day! This was a Dem sponsored law in the VT Legislature and the state Pubbies immediately took it to the laundry.

This victory is one more feather in Pubbie Governor Douglas's hat, even though he had little to do with it.

[Christian4Bush]

This victory is one more feather in Pubbie Governor Douglas's hat, even though he had little to do with it.

And one more defefat (among a myriad of others) in former Dem Governor YEEEEEEEEEEEEAGGHHHH!

...guess I should be careful...Dean might say that he's undergoing the trials of Job, his favorite New Testament character (his words, not mine)...

[gondramB]

>>The majority took issue with Vermont legislators for "constraining speech" by telling candidates and voters how much campaigning was enough.<<

interesting subtlety - they are sticking with "money is not speech" but they recognize it can be the means to speech.

That won't strike down McCain-Feingold but it provides a means of redress if it is imposed too harshly - this should be good for Free Republic.

[Tarkin]

If this applies to state and local offices (non-Congressional) as well, then there's a 10th amendment issue here.

Not really. It's a first amendment issue. And the first amendment is "applicable" to the states through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment.

[jjm2111]

(Alito and Roberts made the Difference)

No they didn't.

[new yorker 77]

Without Alito and Roberts there would only be four votes.

Add Alito and Roberts and you get six.

It is basic math.