Michigan Supreme Court Rules Against Gov. Gov. Whitmer Emergency Orders
Meanwhile in Michigan, the court cases against the emergency orders of governors in response to Covid-19 get a ruling:
WHOA.
Michigan Supreme Court rules against @GovWhitmer's use of 1945 emergency powers law in #COVID19 pandemic, says 145 law "is in violation of the Constitution of our state because it purports to delegate to the executive branch the legislative powers of state government…" pic.twitter.com/sIP7Pd6X6r
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) October 2, 2020
The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday struck down months of orders by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that were aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus, saying she illegally drew authority from a 1945 law that doesn’t apply.
The court said the law was an “unlawful delegation of legislative power to the executive branch in violation of the Michigan Constitution.”
The decision is an extraordinary development in a months-long tug-of-war between Whitmer, a Democrat, and the Republicans who control the Legislature who have complained that they’ve been shut out of major orders that have restricted education, the economy and health care.
Oh, NOW the GOP cares about executive over-reach….Report
When executive over-reach prevents death, Republicans are against it.Report
Don’t get me wrong, I think Whitmer was totally abusing her authority and being stupid, but I would expect the GOP to be doing anything smarter.Report
I watched the oral arguments in the case, and from the judge’s questioning, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Whitmer also sent one of the most arrogant and incompetent young lawyers I’ve ever seen to argue her case. At one point, he basically told the judges to shut up and let him talk because they were stupid.Report
Or I may have the case confused with Wisconsin’s “safer at home” program, which was also struck down by that state’s supreme court, but back in May.Report
The vote was party-line: 4 Republican justices to 3 Democratic, once again demonstrating the importance of our independent judiciary.
I hope I’m wrong in expecting to see spikes in both infections and deaths there.Report
Dang, so you’re saying 3 judges voted for unconstitutional usurpation by the Executive for purely political partisan or possibly consequentialist reasons? We *do* need an independent judiciary.Report
I would say that most legislatures would give the executive temporary emergency authority in a time of crisis.
But the Michigan legislature is now run by Republicans, who absolutely don’t give a darn about this crisis. And are in power due to a gerrymander; more people voted for the Dems in the 2018 legislative elections.Report
We’re really, really good at dealing with acute problems.
And we totally suck at dealing with chronic ones.Report
Even Victor Orban gave up his Emergency Powers in June.
But that’s ok… my point isn’t that we should never have emergency powers, it’s that we really prefer Executive Power… and we’ll all be pleased when the good guys decide its just a better way to do things.Report
“my point isn’t that we should never have emergency powers, it’s that we really prefer Executive Power”
If “we” prefer executive power why are “we” celebrating an Executive getting her powers curtailed?
We /= we, right?Report
Why? I can have the temptation too… I think that’s the point. ‘We’ see executive overreach when ‘they’ do it, but when ‘we’ do it it’s for good and justified causes. So the tendency is increasing among ‘us’ but ‘we’ only see it half the time.Report
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CS Lewis, noted crime expert.Report
Adding:
I have to say I love this bit lifted directly from the Catholic playbook”
“for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Nothing quite like Religious Folk telling other people what and how and why they think what they do lol.
*No religious people were harmed in the above comment.Report
Sure succumb to the temptation. But once you’ve recgonized it it’s like a thing you can’t unsee and then you’re no better than any other partisanly motivated nitwit you want to criticize.Report
Curtail executive power, says the party of Send In The Troops.Report
Well, that’s just it Chip. March isn’t a part of the party who said “send in the troops”, but he “is” of the party (non-political I guess…) which wants to undermine liberalism, which is the same party which sent in the troops.Report
“As a Catholic I believe in doing Good Deeds, but not if coerced. Coercion leads to less good deeds. Therefore, as a Catholic, I’m a libertarian at heart.*”
*Except on the right to choose.Report
Why would the GOP want to undermine liberalism when they’re watching the left crush liberalism under a boot heel, with speech codes, mandated Fascist salutes and racist chants, the smashing of Jewish-owned businesses, attacks on museums and libraries, and Molotov cocktails hurled at anyone who tries to stop them?Report
Biden’s at +8% nationally and leading in all swing states and has even made red states into swingy. Liberalism appears to have a life all its own.Report
When will Democrats figure out how voting works?
They constantly try to run up their vote totals in super-blue urban districts, which is a complete waste. For example, in MI House district 9, Democrats won 25,838 to 630. Well, not only does that strike any sane person as likely to be evidence of fraudulent election rigging, it means they threw away 25,207 extra votes that they didn’t need to win that seat. I’ll call those “wasted extra votes.” In 2018 Democrats had 193,686 more wasted extra votes than the Republicans did.
Now those 630 Republican votes in District 9 are “wasted losing votes”, votes that were in vain, so to speak, because the candidate didn’t win. In 2018 Democrats had 304,220 more wasted losing votes than the Republicans did.
In total, the Democrats threw away 497,906 more votes than the Republicans threw away, which is why they got fewer seats despite getting 193,686 more total votes. That means Republicans had 304,220 more “useful” votes than Democrats.
Or look at wide-margin races, where one party completely dominates a district, which is wildly inefficient. For margins greats than 75%-25%, the Democrats won 23 seats, the Republicans won 0. In fact, the Republicans only won by more than 70% in two districts. The Democrats got more than 90% of the votes in 7 districts.
And here’s their basic problem. When it comes to these local house races, it doesn’t matter how many extra fraudulent votes they generate in blue districts, so they can stuff ballot boxes with dead people’s names all day long, trying to win some of the up-races, but that won’t win them the state House, it’ll just create blow-outs for the seats that weren’t even in doubt in the first place. They’re stuffing the ballot boxes in their own districts, instead of their opponent’s districts. That may win them the governorship and representation in Washington, but it creates an odd imbalance down-ticket.Report
you do know how gerrymandering works, right? and that for the last decade or so its been Republicans packing districts to keep themselves in power? I’m sure you think its a great owning of the libs, but situations like this show why its a disaster.Report
The timing of this decision is very on-brand for 2020.Report
The Michigan legislature has been in session all year (they no longer adjourn sine die, simply recess from time to time). Does anyone know whether they have passed any bills related to the pandemic?
The times I’ve worked for the government it’s always been on the legislative side, so I have an in-built tendency to have the legislature not delegate authority to the executive. OTOH, retaining all of that implies a responsibility to react in a timely fashion when situations arise.Report
The court decision is probably for the best. Whitmer has done some pretty over the top stuff with her authority (banning gardening supplies for instance). This way the legislature is going to have to decide what to authorize and what not to rather than simply carping on the sidelines.Report
given their complete unwillingness to do so to this point, I suspect they will continue to authorize exactly nothing. To Michigan’s detriment.Report
the Majority Republican legislature in Michigan has not taken up any legislation related to this. They have made a stated public case to try and sink the Democratic Governor at all costs.Report