That smoking hole you see in Lansing is all that’s left of the ballot petition peddled by Reform Michigan Government Now. In a 21-page ruling, the Michigan Court of Appeals shot down the petition as unconstitutional and barred it from the November ballot. According to the unanimous decision, as reported by MIRS News […]
Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey has an important column on statenewsshot.com documenting how Tennessee’s so-called “merit” selection scheme has rigged the state’s judicial selection process in favor of powerful special interest groups and moved the entire process behind closed doors, out of public view.
Currently special interests control the appointment process. Although I have eight […]
A Virginia trial lawyer “pleaded guilty to embezzling millions of dollars from clients who had suffered serious injuries to fund a lavish lifestyle” that included a six-bedroom mansion in Virginia horse country and a mountain ski chalet, according to a story in today’s Washington Examiner.
It seems trial lawyer Stephen Conrad was filing personal injury claims, […]
Tennessee’s Judicial Selection Commission yesterday submitted a list of three candidates it deems worthy to fill retiring Chief Justice William Barker’s seat on the state Supreme Court. How did the commissioners reach their decision? Did they weigh each applicant’s judicial temperament? Did they examine each applicant’s judicial philosophy? Did they take into […]
The Cleveland Plain Dealer came out with a strong editorial supporting judicial elections and a campaign rule that would let judicial candidates list their party affiliations in campaign ads – a move the paper called “a big plus for free speech, common sense and Ohio voters.”
After weeks of sober, serious and secret deliberations, Florida’s judicial selection commission emerged from behind closed doors to present Governor Charlie Crist with its list of approved names to fill two state Supreme Court openings. Like other states that utilize so-called “merit” selection, the power to pick judges for the high court in Florida […]
If you are going to engage in judicial overreaching, why not reach for it all?
The “merit-selection” movement has now entered its inevitable new phase. In a stunning rejection of more than two centuries of Constitutional advice and consent, the American Bar Association is touting a proposal that would institutionalize the role of home-state senators […]
Alicia Mundy of The Wall Street Journal has a piece on the politics of tort reform in today’s edition.
Mundy notes that judges are putting holds on major cases pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Wyeth v. Levine, a case to be heard on November 3. While that case is pending, Mundy describes how […]
John Gizzi of Human Events has a nice wrap-up piece of the political state of affairs in Michigan.
Gizzi correctly analyzes the sham Reform Michigan Government Now proposal as a power grab in the tradition of hard-left subversion, larded with enough superficial items meant to appeal to conservatives to reveal the utter cynicism of its authors.
Upholding […]
The New York Times reports on a study to be published in the September issue of Journal of Empirical Legal Studies that analyzes whether the parties in a lawsuit would be better off settling or going to trial. Being The Times, they lead with the plaintiffs’ angle—“most of the plaintiffs who decided to pass […]
