Our Court is perfectly balanced right now. They have repeatedly thwarted the worst of the worst (the minority voter purge, the craziest of gerrymandering, kicking off misleading amendments, stopping the assault on our teachers, etc.) Pam Bondi, our crappy AG, is as partisan as they come so no citizen can expect justice from her. Nor any other Florida official.
The tea party has already done PLENTY to harm Florida--the only thing stopping our state from devolving into complete tea-laden anarchy is our Court.
And friends, they have tried, tried, and tried again.
They tried an insane witchhunt to throw the three liberal justices off the Court, abusing law enforcement resources.
They failed.
They tried a bizarre ploy to split the Court into two... putting the liberal justices on a new "Criminal" court and leaving all legislative matters to the conservative justices.
That failed.
Then there was the unprecedented partisan assault during the three justices' merit retention last year.
The Koch brothers used AFP to spend millions attacking these justices.
That failed too.
Another ballot measure they forced upon us would have amended our state constitution to require that the state Senate sign off on judicial appointments.
That failed as well.
Four times. Four failures.
And four months later, fifth time being charm, they FINALLY may have done it:
The Florida Senate passed a bill this week that could raise the stakes of this year’s gubernatorial election.The bill, S.B. 1188, would allow the winner of this year’s election to appoint three new Florida Supreme Court Justices—replacing three of the state high court’s most liberal members.
According to The Florida Current, the bill passed in the Senate along party lines on Thursday, 26-14.
The House (which is also packed with teabaggers) will likely follow according to their leader, Will Weatherford.
So if the amendment passes, and Rick Scott wins... the independent judiciary becomes another partisan wing of Teapartistan.
No rest here, folks. Sh** just got real.
Rick Scott HAS to lose. No governor should get to pack the Court... let alone a criminal one. We've managed to defeat these underhanded bastards four times. If Rick Scott wins, there will be no one to stand in the way of the brazen assaults on those with no special interest power.
Democrats, I know this a mid-term election. But if you think its bad now, imagine a Rick Scott with NO upcoming election and every branch at his disposal.
Don't get scared. Get active.
Just for the sake of discussion....word has been that Bill Nelson will step into the race if Crist falters in the polls. Now I wonder, could there actually be some tactics at work here? If Crist does falter, let Rick Scott waste his money pounding on Crist...until Nelson steps in at the last possible moment, leaving Scott with far less money to spend against a very strong candidate?
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, it would be a joy to see Scott flush his money down the toilet under those circumstances.