Craziest Lawsuit Contest
January 3, 2012
The New Jersey Lawsuit Reform Alliance is holding its annual contest to identify the craziest lawsuit of 2011. My personal favorite: the 19- and 21-year-old siblings who sued their mother because of the emotional distress they suffered from the corny birthday cards she gave them. Life can sure be tough.
Judicial Activism/Imperialism Run Amok in New Jersey
May 26, 2011
Last year, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie attempted to rein in the state’s overreaching Supreme Court by refusing to reappoint long-time activist Justice John Wallace. The state Senate, however, blocked Christie’s appointment, creating a vacancy on the bench that was temporarily filled by another activist judge. This week, those chickens came home to roost in the form of a 3-2 decision in which the Imperial Court ordered Christie to spend an additional $500 million on school districts described as “mismanaged (and sometimes corrupt).” Over at “The Corner,” Daniel Foster points out that despite flooding these school districts with billions of dollars in recent decades they remain, “by and large, absolute failures.”
For his part, Christie said the decision “represents everything that’s wrong with how Trenton has historically operated.” “As a fundamental principle,” Christie declared:
“I do not believe that it is the role of the state Supreme Court to determine what programs the state should and should not be funding … The court should not be dictating how taxpayer dollars are spent….The Supreme Court is not the Legislature. It should not dictate policy. It should not be in the business of discussing specific taxes to be raised. And it should not have any business deciding how tax dollars are spent.”
This latest case of judicial activism run amok is just another example – as if one were needed – about why Americans across the country are rising up and demanding greater accountability from their public servants on the bench. In Iowa, citizens rose up last November against an imperial Court that ordered the state to redefine the meaning of marriage. In Indiana this week, citizens protested a Court decision that says they can’t resist unlawful searches of their homes. Now in New Jersey, the Court is ordering the state to spend $500 million it doesn’t have against the express wishes of the elected governor.
The George Soros-bought-and-paid-for “merit” selection campaign and its gullible (complicit?) allies in the media want us all to believe this groundswell of opposition to judicial imperialism is somehow due to “special interests.” The truth is, it’s just people sick and tired of public servants (i.e. judges) who think they’re above public accountability.
New Jersey Supreme Court Update: Voters Support Christie
September 24, 2010
Gary Marx over at National Review Online’s “Bench Memos” has an update on the battle New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is waging to rein in an activist Supreme Court. American Courthouse readers will remember that Christie took on the state’s legal establishment by refusing to reappoint Justice John Wallace. The state Senate has responded by refusing to hold hearings on Christie’s nominee to replace Wallace. Marx cites a new Federalist Society white paper and poll that shows a majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents all support a hearing for Christie’s nominee.
Marx also includes a link to a must-see video where Christie explains, in his trademark common sense style, how an activist Court is “taking authority away from the people you elect and [giving it] to people you don’t elect.…” Watch the video below.
A Call for a “Fair Hearing” of Christie’s Nominee to NJ High Court
May 25, 2010
A group of Republican women legislators have issued a public statement of support for Anne Patterson, NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s nominee to the state Supreme Court. Patterson was nominated to the bench after Gov. Christie declined to renominate sitting liberal justice, John Wallace. State Senate Democrats are currently blocking a hearing for the nominee. Read more
“Judicial Hypocrisy” in New Jersey
May 20, 2010
Paul Mulshine’s excellent item from earlier this week is a must-read for those following Governor Kryptonite’s (AKA Gov. Chris Christie) effort to reform the New Jersey Supreme Court. Gov. Christie declined to re-appoint liberal justice John Wallace to the state Supreme Court — promptly setting all of New Jersey’s judicial activists a-clucking. (I’ve written about this here and here.)
Mulshine, a writer with Newark’s Star-Ledger, chides eight former state supreme court justices for releasing a statement in which they take issue with reappointment powers clearly granted to the governor in the state constitution. Read more
Governor Kryptonite Takes on the Guardians of New Jersey’s Legal Establishment
May 12, 2010
The guardians of New Jersey’s legal establishment are up in arms over Governor Chris Christie’s “refusal” to reappoint Justice John E. Wallace, Jr., stirring a “furious controversy and charges the governor is jeopardizing judicial independence.” At least that’s how the gavel grabbers over at Justice at Stake describe it.
Exactly what has Governor Christie done to threaten the judiciary’s independence? Follow the state Constitution as near as I can tell. Read more
New Jersey’s Kryptonite Governor
May 5, 2010
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie isn’t content to take on just the state’s powerful teachers’ union and the entrenched, bloated bureaucracy that leeches off New Jersey’s over-burdened taxpayers. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, Christie is battling the legislature and the legal establishment in order to rein in a “liberal and activist” Supreme Court. Is this guy made of kryptonite or something?
Under New Jersey’s Constitution, the Governor appoints Supreme Court justices “with the advice and consent of the Senate.” Governor Christie wants to dump one justice whose term is up and replace him with an Ivy League-educated lawyer named Anne Patterson who cut her teeth defending against toxic tort suits and other trial lawyer boondoggles. It’s part of his plan to reshape a court he considers “too liberal and activist.”
But Senate President Stephen Sweeney does not consent. He prefers New Jersey’s long-standing, clubby tradition whereby any justice who wants to warm his seat for another seven years is automatically reappointed.
As Christie interprets it, New Jersey’s Constitution “clearly states that all justices of the Supreme Court are appointed to an initial seven-year term – not automatic lifetime tenure.”
Who will win the showdown? I’m betting on Governor Kryptonite.