Tired of being asked to predict what voters would do, the state Supreme Court is dropping a legal standard that Arizona justices have used for decades to help decide whether some ballot measures can go before voters.
No longer will courts attempt to decide whether a "reasonable voter" would likely support all elements of a proposed constitutional amendment or feel compelled to back the package to get parts of it passed even if others were objectionable, the Supreme Court said.
In a case relating to the November ballot's Proposition 107 (anti-same sex marriage/unmarried couples of any combination measure), the Arizona Supreme Court decided it "will continue to decide single-amendment compliance by whether a ballot measure's provisions are on the same topic, related in content and share a common purpose to form a consistent and workable package that should stand or fall together, " while discarding the standard of what a "reasonable voter" would decide because that standard had caused too much confusion through the years.
A .pdf containing the Court's opinion is here.
Since I didn't work on any of the proposition campaigns, I'm not sure what effect this ruling will have; in retrospect, perhaps the backers of the measure would have been better off if the court had kicked their measure off of the ballot last fall.
Most observers feel it was defeated because it tried to do too much - an attack on same sex marriage might have passed; the writers of the measure were a little too greedy when they went after unmarried couples, too.
...Thanks to Desert Beacon in Nevada for pointing out this resource: CoherentBabble has put together an index of President Bush's "signing statements"; aka - the statements where he says that the laws of this country don't apply to him or anyone doing his bidding.
...Lost in the uproar over the President's plan to send more American soldiers and Iraqi civilians to their deaths in his personal War to Aid Halliburton's Bottom Line is one of the methods he is using to find the warm bodies he needs: unlimited redeployment of National Guard units that have already seen combat.
Previous policy called for a minimum of five years between combat deployments for National Guard units.
Bonus: a column on the Halliburton subject, written by Gerald W. McEntee, International President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO. is here.
...The Bush administration's efforts to deny detainees any legal assistance continued this week when the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, one Charles Stimson, told a radio talk show that companies should take their business away from any law firms that represent detainees and give it to firms that represent "reputable firms." He went on to name a number of law firms engaged in the defense of detainees.
Of course, Mr. Stimson actually likes the living conditions of the detainees, even at Guantanamo. He probably just can't understand why anyone would object to the detention.
The Pentagon later stated that Mr. Stimson was not speaking for the Bush Administration, even though on Friday, the Wall Street Journal supported him like he was. (The Editor and Publisher link is used because the WSJ requires a subscription for their website. Not gonna happen. :) )
Later!
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