[CharacterCounts]

The court put its seal of approval on the legislature retroactively

changing the deadline to avoid the 48 hour rule. Statutes are not normally retroactive and I think the decision stinks. But the reasoning, if the statute was again retroactively changed would be the same.

The key points here is not about primaries, it is about approving a statute that retroactively moves the election goal posts.

[Political Junkie Too]

I don't think you can take it that narrowly. They only moved the goalpost because it was an unopposed primary. Primaries are bounded by the party anyway, so it makes sense to give a single party the chance to run alternative candidates for the selection process.

I don't know that the court would have ruled the same way for the general election, since there are other qualified candidates on the ballot. It wouldn't be a case of limiting the choice to one as it would be in the primary, which is by definition a narrowing process.

Just my opinion.

-PJ

[Congressman Billybob]

I was involved in the Brett Schundler litigation. That case offers the Dems no help in the present situation. In the Schundler case, the court upheld the "new" deadline that had been set by act of the legislature. In the Torricelli case, the legislature has done nothing to change the deadline. It is still 51 days.

The general proposition is that courts should obey and enforce laws that are written by the elected representatives, not rewrite the laws on the spot to suit what they think is right. If the Schundler logic is applied to the Torricelli case, the legislature's deadline will be upheld and Torricelli will lose.

Congressman Billybob

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