Florida’s Supreme Court on Wednesday tossed out two statewide ballot initiatives aimed at ending a longstanding ban on public funding for religious institutions, drawing praise from church-state watchdogs.
Civil liberties groups had filed suit to remove the amendments headed for the November ballot, which sought to rewrite the state constitution to allow church groups to participate in government programs, and pave the way for school voucher programs.
A lower court had upheld the initiatives in an Aug. 4 decision.
It doesn’t say what reasoning the Court gave, or what authority it has simply to toss initiatives to amend the State constitution.
Impeachment of the Florida Supreme Court Justices is a valid option and a I think a good response to their thwarting of the will of the people. If the people of Florida want to change the Florida constitution, how dare the court try to stop them. We are a republic, and as such the power is with the people, not some few elitest judges. That being said, if the people do not prevail upon their representatives to impeach the justices…then they get the government they deserve.
#1—The court’s authority in this case comes from the fact that it is, you know, the Supreme Court of the State of Florida. Any state supreme court has a duty to toss amendments to that state’s constitution that would violate the U.S. Constitution, and giving taxpayers’ money to religious institutions violates the U.S. Constitution.
#2—In the 1960s, the will of the people was against desegregation. Without judges’ “thwarting of the will of the people,” desegregation would likely have continued.
No court is obligated to toss ballot initiatives, in fact its an intrusion into a process the court has no constitutional authority to involve itself in. The court has every right to rule on the constitutionality of laws or amendments once ratified and voted on. The SC has no right to interfere with the initiatives and the peoples right to vote on them.
Any state supreme court has a duty to toss amendments to that state’s constitution that would violate the U.S. Constitution
Flatly untrue. State courts have absolutely no obligation to gaurd the US Constitution. We actually have a Federal court system set up to do just that. Or are you laboring under the delusion that States are merely arms and servants of the federal government?
Desegregation was achieved by a combination of judicial and legislative actions. The judicial acts were not presumptive rejections of proposed constitutional changes, but decisions that current laws violated the constitution as written.
I’m not a constitutional scholar, but am working from memory of the times. Perhaps one of the lawyers can enlighten me if my memory is faulty.