GOP Governor's Shocking Act (asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the legislature to raise taxes)

The courts aren't just approaching a slippery slope, they're over the top and they're sliding down that slippery slope full steam ahead. The problem is that most people don't care. As long as the courts do what people want, well, that's fine with them.

The Republican governor of Nevada, Kenny Guinn, has asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the Nevada legislature to raise taxes. Fifteen Republicans have refused to bend over and grab the ankles and accept these massive tax increases, so the pro-tax supporters are one vote shy of the two-thirds majority they need to do this. The fearless 15 point out that higher taxes aimed at the business community would hurt the state economy, and some lawmakers, including a couple of Democrats, believe that court intervention could set a dangerous precedent. And they're right!

This is not how it works. The Supreme Court does not order the legislature to do anything. You do not order the legislature to write and pass laws. The legislature is the elected representative of the people. Under our system of representative government, the courts have a distinct role, and that's to interpret law. They aren't de facto legislatures in charge of public policy, and they shouldn't be cultural arbiters either - though given the latest Supreme Court rulings, you wouldn't know that.

I am not a citizen of that fair state and have not followed its politics until very recently, all relating to the current issue an elected governor demanding the legislature to raise taxes and then filing suit to enforce said demand.

This idiot Gov must be the long-lost love child of Mayor Bloomberg - although there are idiots in all parties, these two seems related inasmuch as they are the finest examples of RINO's presently outside of institutional care.

Exactly...

They only whine about "judicial activism" when it doesn't happen in their favor.

This guy should be removed from office, pronto.

I don't give a damn if he does have an "R" behind his name.

Are we a judgeocracy?

Some people,such as the editorial board at the Buffalo News thinks that is not such a bad idea.

This was a good letter to the editor in today's Buffalo News that I thought I would share.

Scalia's dissent made perfect sense

7/5/2003

A recent News editorial celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court's gay sex decision, excoriated Justice Antonin Scalia for suggesting that sex between men offends many Americans' moral sensibilities and called on Sen. Charles Schumer to see to it that "far right ideologues" like Scalia never again receive Senate confirmation.

The News editors' view is self-indulgent and shortsighted. The News wrote: "Government has no right to get involved in people's private behavior" and that "people just want the right to be left alone in the privacy of their own homes. What's wrong with that?"

What's wrong with that is that if people can do whatever they want once they step inside their houses, then there is no need for laws. That means as long as I'm in my house, I can shoot drugs with my friends, plot the destruction of the World Trade Center with like-minded adults and engage in prostitution and bestiality.

Ah, The News might respond, but there are obviously some things we can't do in our houses. This is where The News is shortsighted. In a democracy, whom do you want telling you what you can and cannot do in your house? A majority of the people, speaking through a majority of their duly elected representatives? Or a handful of lawyers sitting at a table behind their closed doors in Washington? The News picks the lawyers because this time it got what it wanted. The News is all for politicizing the judiciary, as long as it can get liberals on the court who are willing to impose their cultural views on America.

If the gays do not like the law in Texas, they have every constitutional right to organize and lobby their legislators to change the law. That was Scalia's point, and that is the point of the U.S. Constitution.

ELAINE NIVER DWYER
Olean

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