PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"

Hugh Hewitt:

Some commentators are pointing to the initial reluctance of the Supremes to get involved in the Florida mess in 2000 and the Court's coimplete refusal to inject itself into the New Jersey U.S. Senate dust-up last year as evidence that the Court will not distrub the Ninth Circuit's result, no matter what it is.

I think this reasoning underestimates the wildly radical nature of Monday's decision. Bush v. Gore was a case of first impression on how ballots should be recounted in a Presidential election after the polls had closed. Monday's ruling takes that very narrow case --decided reluctantly and under extraordinary pressure, and then only following widely recognized irresponsibility by the Florida Supreme Court-- and, using Dr. Frankenstein technique, changes it into a license for federal judges to assume control over all state elections in the future. The current Supreme Court is best known for resurrecting protections for states against federal power, and the authors of Bush v. Gore know how carefully they wrote the opinions in that dispute in order to prevent just this sort of piracy. I don't believe the justices will stand by and see three out-of-control partisans loot and pillage constitutional tradition because they are afraid that Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd might write something nasty in the New York Times or that Joe Conason will issue another unread book. Nobdoy watches Capitol Gang anymore anyway, so why care what Al Hunt and Margaret Carlson say?

In other words, the Supreme Court will act. Justice Jackson in his dissent in Korematsu warned of decisions that lay around "like loaded pistols" on the desk. Such is Monday's decision. If the Ninth Circuit does not do the necessary clean-up, I expect the Supreme Court will.

Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack