One in Michigan got one right. The Michigan Court of Appeals has reversed a State Court of Claims decision that would have counted ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to two weeks later.
The appellate court held that
[D]esigning adjustments to our election integrity laws is the responsibility of our elected policy makers, not the judiciary….
The court also held that
Progressive-Democrats are accusing Republicans of that as they move to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court “in a Presidential election year.” Typical of them is this bit by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D, VA):
I’m focused on the hypocrisy of the Republicans who promised, Lindsey Graham [R, SC, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman] being number one, his own words, said they wouldn’t do this.
What Connolly is carefully ignoring is that Graham, subsequent to that commitment and in response to the then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings, said in no uncertain terms, that as a result of Progressive-Democrat (my term) behavior during those hearings, all bets were off.
Leslie Marshall thinks Judge Amy Coney Barrett ought not be confirmed—ought not even be considered—as a Supreme Court Justice.
She’s wrong.
Barrett could also cast a key vote on cases involving the upcoming presidential election….
That’s part of the point of getting a ninth Justice quickly confirmed—to avoid the possibility of tie votes on such important decisions.
…she has little in common with Ginsburg.
Nor is she required to have; she’d be her own Justice, just like the other eight each are their own Justice. Contrary to Marshall’s apparent belief, the vacant seat isn’t Ginsburg’s seat, nor is it a liberal’s seat. It’s the people’s seat on We the People’s Supreme Court.
Senate Progressive-Democrats are growing increasingly hysterical over the thought of President Donald Trump nominating someone—anyone—to fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court and the majority Republican Senate confirming the nominee (never minding that confirmation is far from a done deal). It’s especially overt with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY):
All the rights enshrined in our Constitution that are supposed to be protected by the Supreme Court of the United States. All the rights that could be undone or unwound by a conservative majority on the court.
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D, MI) was asked, on a conference call involving conference call Wednesday with Senators Tammy Baldwin (D, WI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D, RI), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY)
if they support “stacking the court” in response to the GOP proceeding with the nomination to fill the vacancy.
“I would say we want to take it one step at a time,” Stabenow replied. “We’re focused on what we need to do right now to be able to get [] four Republicans to join us.
The Progressive-Democrats in the Senate object to President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. They object, as I write this, even before they know who that nominee is—it could be me, for all they know, but they object.
This has nothing to do with the qualifications of that nominee-to-be; it has everything to do with what they consider to be their personally owned seat on the Court—just like they’ve been trying to block the squatter in their private house known colloquially as the White House.
That’s what The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board thinks of Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s rationalization of his refusal to publish his list (assuming it exists) of judges from which he’d pick nominations to the Supreme Court.
Mr Biden has resisted naming individuals he’d consider for the Supreme Court, saying it would subject them to undue criticism. Fair enough—Mr Trump’s practice of making his short-list public is not required of other candidates.
…stacking the vote and demonstrating the need for judges at all levels who will be true to their oaths of office and rule based on what the law says and not on what the judge wants the law to say.
[L]ast week a [Michigan] state judge ordered officials to keep tallying ballots that arrive up to 14 days late, provided they bear a postmark of November 2 or earlier.
Never mind what Michigan State law actually says on the matter. The judge knows better than the people’s representatives, and she considers herself eminently qualified and obligated to stray from her judicial constraints and intrude into a political matter.
Bobby Jindal, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, is on the right track, but wide of the mark. He opened with
President Trump’s determination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy has enraged Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ominously warns that if Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is replaced and Democrats gain a Senate majority, “nothing is off the table.” It’s not clear what was off the table before: Democrats had already threatened to end the filibuster, ignore pay-as-you-go rules, make the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico states and pack the court.
A 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has a case that’s well summarized (for the sake of my thesis) by the Institute for Justice in this way:
What are judges to do when they wish to be faithful to text but two provisions of the same law irreconcilably conflict? The Fifth Circuit brings us the answer with an annual Medicare health care provider compensation formula that overlaps for one day each year.
The court’s answer is a blithe engagement in Newspeak, textualism, and a misunderstanding of the duties of judges. The details of the case itself needn’t concern us here; it’s sufficient that it centers on those two provisions of a statute that contradict each other: