Notes For Wednesday, January 01, 2003

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 7:39 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

IT'S ALL IN A HEADLINE. The Bell appointment to the Florida Supreme Court has received monster coverage, as well it should. But compare how the two newspapers in conservative southwest Florida headline the identical AP wire story:

"Governor moving state Supreme Court away from judicial activism"

"Bush shifts state Supreme Court slowly to right"

The first headline accepts as fact that the Court is, at present, engaged in "judicial activism". Whether the court is or is not an "activist" court is a matter of some debate - Right wingers say it is "activist"; just about everyone else, including the bulk of the legal community considers the court to be quite moderate. The headline of course ignores the majority view of the court, and accepts and presupposes the hard right canard that the court is "activist". Newspapers have no business making value judgments of this sorts in their headlines.

The second headline is more appropriate. There is no dispute that the Bell is a right winger, and his appointment will move the court rightward. This headline, however, does not impose a value judgment as to where the court presently is: on the left, in the middle, or on the right. Rather, it simply informs that, whatever the court's collective bent, the Bell appointment is to the right of that.

7:33 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]


IT'S CALLED A CONSTITUTION. An AP Wire story reviews John Ellis Bush's ham handed efforts to move the Florida Supreme Court to the right. In it, we read several statements by Bush that suggest that sometimes lawyers, rather than small-time developers, are more fit to serve in the governor's office.

Gov Bush said in July that Florida courts had "seized control over policy decisions." On Monday, Bush said courts "must guard our individual rights, but not at the expense of our collective right to self-government." These words, and particularly the latter statement, belie Bush's breathtaking ignorance of both U.S. history and constitutional law. Both the Florida and U.S. constitutions - which are interpreted by judges, as opposed to the Tom Feeney's of the world - exist for the very purpose of limiting "collective" "policy decisions" that trammel upon the constitutional rights of the minority. The Governor is not a king, and the Legislature is not a politbureau, whose expression of the "collective" will - via legislation - is the end of the story.

7:09 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]