The question is whether a State SC can ignore the State's Constitution and order a Legislature to raise revenues.
A scofflaw State Court is very much the business of the USSC.
See this article for a view on why that's unfortunate, but esstially correct.
That's a long complicated article. Could you briefly summarize the reason why the matter is not the business of the Federal Courts?
I think Ken's comment is dead on.
I sense that this case is headed for the USSC, and quickly, for the issues at hand are among the most fundamental to our [supposedly] democratic republic.
This has all the makings of a monumentally historic case which has the potential to determine _whether or not_ our democratic republic can _remain_ exactly that. Or, do we risk becoming nothing more than a fiefdom, lorded over at the whims of imperial judges?
When I first read about the Nevada Supreme Court's opinion, I was shocked. If a judge, or judges, can blatantly IGNORE the plainly-written language of the Constitution under which he/she/they sit, at the same time also ignoring the will of the people as expressed through the legislature, the essence of the Republic is in mortal danger. This _isn't_ "interpretation": the Nevada Constitution explicitly specifies how a budget is to be enacted.
There is nothing to "interpret" here at all. This is nothing less than an overt attempt to usurp the democratic process through judicial power, in which the judges of the Court have "called the bluff" of all those whom they hold "below them".
What if the Nevada legislature is now unable to pass a budget by a simple majority? Will the Nevada Supreme Court further order that a budget favorable to its whim be passed by a plurality?
To put it another way, suppose the United States Supreme Court was to order the U.S. Congress to _re-enact_ welfare laws, on the supposition that welfare for the indigent was a _fundamental right_, the need for which superseded previously-enacted laws to reform it? Or, to order the Congress to pass "health care for all" legislation, regardless of the cost, claiming that it "discovered" that access to complete health care was another of those "fundamental rights" hidden in the "penumbras" of the Constitution?
Again, this has the makings of a monumental ideological contest. I hope the folks "on our side" won't give up the battle too quickly.
Cheers!
- John