So, at minimum, Christie T. nominated three Democrats, which is more than the maximum number of two Republicans that she could have nominated.
Hmmm...
Posted on 10/03/2002 10:37:43 AM PDT by xsysmgr
I thought the wheels of justice grind slowly. Then again, I never litigated before the hyper-efficient justices of the New Jersey supreme court.
On Monday, around 5 P.M., Sen. Robert Torricelli announced that he would not seek reelection. On the same day, the New Jersey Democratic party, among others, asked the superior court and the New Jersey supreme court to allow the ballots for the November election to be changed. The next day, Tuesday, the New Jersey supreme court took up the case directly and scheduled oral arguments for the following morning. On Wednesday morning, the court heard oral arguments for 2-1/2 hours. A mere six hours later, the justices ruled unanimously that Torricelli's name must be removed from the ballot and replaced with "a candidate duly selected by the Democratic State Committee." In other words, even if the Democrats had not agreed on a candidate by the time of this ruling, they would have been free to continue searching for the candidate with the highest poll numbers.
The justices were twitching like crack addicts to get this decision out by last night, and the opinion reflects their "deliberative" state of mind. The opinion consists of seven pages, double-spaced. The caption is two pages in length, the order is two pages in length, the recitation of facts consists of one page, and the entirety of the court's legal reasoning takes up all of two pages. They could at least have thrown in a couple of recipes to give their opinion more weight.
But the economy of words alone does not do this decision justice. The court found two cases on which it relied for purported precedent in rewriting New Jersey's election laws. The first case, Kilmurray v. Gilfert, is cited for the proposition that "it is in the public interest and the general intent of the election laws to preserve the two-party system and to submit to the electorate a ballot bearing the names of candidates of both major political parties as well as of all other qualifying parties and groups." [Emphasis added.]
The point is, of course, that Frank Lautenberg, the Democratic State Committee's replacement choice, does not qualify under existing New Jersey election law, which requires candidate selection to be completed no fewer than 51 days before the election. This citation does not support the court's position.
The next case in the court's two-case arsenal is Catania v. Haberle. The justices cite this case for the proposition that the law should be liberally construed "to allow the greatest scope for public participation in the electoral process, to allow candidates to get on the ballot, to allow parties to put their candidates on the ballot, and most importantly, to allow the voters a choice on Election Day."
But the voters did have a choice on Election Day. They could vote for the Democratic nominee, the Republican nominee, or any of the other, minor party candidates on the ballot; or they could write in whomever they wished. Moreover, in Catania, the Republicans did not have a nominee. In the present case, the Democrats sought to replace their nominee. And they could only do so with the help of the court.
The New Jersey supreme court has now joined Florida's high court in its willingness to rewrite election law for partisan political purposes. I fear that the precedent set by Al Gore during the 2000 election, in which he sought judicial help in securing the presidency, will now plague the electoral process for decades to come. And when considered along with the spectacle now taking place in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee — in which highly qualified conservative judicial candidates are being summarily denied appointment — the Democratic party's politicization of the judiciary can be counted as yet another step in undermining the rule of law.
My 16yob would like to vote for Simon. On this precedent, is there any good reason why he can't? Sixteen is much closer to eighteen than 30 is to 51.
Dan
So, at minimum, Christie T. nominated three Democrats, which is more than the maximum number of two Republicans that she could have nominated.
Hmmm...
The reason is that Simon is a Republican.
If your son is 16 and an Illegal Alien, he may still vote for Davis...
As often as he likes.
Good point.
But when the precedents they cite are totally nonapplicable to the case at hand, then the complete corruption of this kangaroo court are on display for all to see. If the people of NJ do not rectify this with a vote for anyone but Torricelli-Lautenberg, then they deserve to be the butts of any and all jokes about their complicit stupidity/corruption.
As for the rest of the electorate, the dems clearly feel their constituencies will swallow any bullcrap they focus group, and the mushy middle won't care.
Dan
Although he doesn't raise it directly (but references in last paragraph): is there a conflict of interest on the part of the NJ Supremes since one or more of them may be aspirants to the Federal bench -- and it's clear the Demos on the Judicial Committee are in the bag for Liberal-Only appellate/district courts... Just wondering.
Why?
You are so right. Did you hear Chris Dodd on Imus this am. He was smirking and I was so angry hearing him
For this reason, I think the NJSC simply abdicated their legal jurisdiction on this one. This "ruling" was performed as a matter of process alone. The Dems want this case to go to the USSC for a ruling, even an obvious one, because they want to be able to say, "see, the GOP did it again, they STOLE another election." Then, the Dems will play it out in the court of public opinion, with the help of an able and willing mainstream media.
No kidding. If this abuse of the judiciary weren't so series I'd actually have to laugh at the absurdity of this.
I'm hoping to see a grass-roots "Repudiate Democrats" theme emerge in November because of the latest Democrat rantings.
Since we're coming down to the final 30 days of the campaign, I'd like to see a national theme emerge that reinforces the following:
The Democrats could have cleaned their own house and solved their problems had they admitted mistakes, but they chose to take the risk of defending flawed and/or guilty people. If the Democrats had removed Bill Clinton, Al Gore would be president now. Had the Democrats removed Robert Torricelli, they would be winning in New Jersey now. If the Democrats won't fix their own problems, then the American people will have to do it for them.
It's time for America to repudiate Democrats and vote Republican for law and order. Take back our electoral process. Take back Congress. Put an end to the contempt that the Democrats have for the rule of law and the people of the United States.
-PJ
Whoever wrote those words probably wrote them before the selection of Lautenberg was finalized at 8 PM on Tuesday.
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