rumitoid

The list and extent is steadily growing: Gerrymandering, voter suppression ID laws, changing polling rules (such as in Georgia trying to do away with 7 out of 9 polling places on a Black majority county), denying to vote on Obama's SCOTUS nomination, resisting federal court rulings on unconstitutional gerrymandering voter suppression laws, and more. Here is a very scary threat to our democracy.

The question at the heart of West Virginia lawmakers' unprecedented move to impeach all of the state’s top justices is intent. Did lawmakers in the state House vote Monday to impeach the entire court because the justices were misusing state funds to a degree that merits impeachment? Or are West Virginia’s Republican lawmakers trying to get rid of the justices on trumped-up charges so the state’s GOP governor can appoint new ones?

Intent, in politics as in life, is hard to decipher. But what is not in question among judicial independence experts is West Virginia headlines a potentially troubling trend among state legislatures this year of politicians moving to exert control over a separate branch of government.

Lawmakers in 16 states have considered more than 50 different bills to minimize the role of state courts or make it harder for judges to do their jobs, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, which described this as an “assault” on the judicial branch: “In the Trump era, courts frequently appear to be the last line of defense against partisan overreach. But in many states, courts’ vital role in our democracy is under threat.”

To some degree, tension between state courts and state government is normal. But what is going on now is not, says Doug Keith with the Brennan Center. The center’s research found that in the past 25 years, just two state judges have been impeached. Compare that with 2018, where on one day in one year, lawmakers impeached four justices. That was just in one state.

In North Carolina, the Republican-controlled legislature managed to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to give lawmakers a lot more control over appointing judges. Right now the state’s Democratic governor gets to do that.

In Arkansas, lawmakers voted to put a measure on the ballot this November that would let them seize control over writing much of the top court’s rules.

In Missouri, Oklahoma and South Carolina, lawmakers proposed legislation to gut the role of independent commissions that nominate judges for the governor to appoint to the courts. Some Iowa and Missouri lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment to outright eliminate its independent commission that selects judges.

One of the most blatantly political efforts to rein in a court came this year in Pennsylvania, where a dozen Republican lawmakers filed a resolution to impeach Democratic justices who threw out Republicans' congressional map. That effort has stalled, but it was only one of a few examples in recent history of lawmakers trying to impeach justices for specific rulings.

[Pennsylvania' Supreme Court just gave Democrats a big win on redistricting]

No state has gone further than West Virginia, though. Republicans in the state House said the impeachment was necessary to restore faith in the court after allegations of lavish spending on the part of some justices to renovate their offices. One suspended justice, Allen H. Loughry III, is facing a 23-count federal indictment on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice related to that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/08/14/west-virginias-efforts-impeach-states-supreme-court-is-just-latest-worrisome-trend/?utm_term=.8531cd4bb27e
“It has become clear that our Supreme Court has breached the public trust and lost the confidence of our citizens,” state House Speaker John Overington (R) said Monday.

But Democrats and good-government advocates in the state say this does not sit right. They worry lawmakers are taking advantage of one scandal to seize control of the entire court. After Tuesday, the governor can appoint justices to sit on the court until 2020.

“We feel West Virginians are right to be outraged about justices' alleged spending,” said Julie Archer with West Virginia Citizens for Clean Elections, “but we think the optics of what’s happening is really bad: potentially removing multiple justices, subverting the vote of the people and letting the governor fill multiple vacancies on the court.”

"No charges have been brought against any other justices," she added. "It just seems suspicious that all of a sudden they are being swept up in this as well."

Not helping quell fears is the impeachment was done almost entirely along partisan lines in the Republican-controlled House and would inevitably benefit Republicans. If these justices lose their trial in the Republican-controlled state Senate, Republican Gov. Jim Justice will get to appoint new ones. Those justices will not be up for reelection again until 2020, when they will ostensibly have the advantage of incumbency.

Democratic Justice Robin Davis retired Tuesday rather than face impeachment, bashing the impeachment as a breach of justice: “What we are witnessing is a disaster for the rule of law, the foundation of our state and indeed, our own society."

West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Robin Davis announces her retirement Tuesday. (Craig Hudson /Charleston Gazette-Mail/AP)

It is impossible to pin down one reason for lawmakers taking increasingly bold actions against courts, Keith said. But it is noteworthy that this is all happening under the umbrella of a president who routinely attacks the courts and independent judicial system for rulings or investigations he does not like.

“It is difficult to divorce this from all the rhetoric we are seeing around the courts,” Keith said. “When you hear political leadership talking about courts that way, it certainly seems to give state legislatures the green light to push the envelope.”

bahmer

Fascism is a form of government which is a type of one-party dictatorship. Fascists are against democracy. They work for a totalitarian one-party state. ... It stands for a centralized government headed by a dictator. This describes the democrat party far more than the republicans sorry about that.

rumitoid

I have been showing where the GOP is clearly moving toward fascism in a number of threads, like this one. Please show any evidence this is true for Democrats. And I also noticed you did not comment on the facts of my thread.

imbobbyc Loc: Montana

There are no facts in your thread.

bahmer

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are both leaning toward if not advocating for socialism and what would you call socialism but a form of fascism. Most all of your posts are from a left lean if not an alt left view. Believe as you will but the fascismos from the left and not the right.

rumitoid

Prove it.

woodguru

It is republicans in control of legislatures trying to impeach the left side of whole benches because they are shooting down jerrymanders and constitutional violations. It is happening over and over.

How would you feel if dems got control and tried to impeach all five conservative justices on the supreme court? This is what's happening and so far all I can see is that the right doesn't have a problem with GOP senates and houses trying to do this. They see a state supreme court call them on a constitutional violation and they use their control to impeach all of half of a supreme court bench that opposes the conservatives?

I don't care whether you are right or left it's wrong and if you support the constitution and are a patriot you have to object to that kind of actions.

woodguru

It's full of facts, this is not the first state government that isn't trying to impeach a whole side of the bench they don't agree with.

Instead of saying something ignorant like there are no facts in a thread why don't you try looking any of them up?

woodguru

Right off the bat, how about Obama's SCOTUS pick? That's fact

rumitoid

We already have what many erroneously call "socialism": it is a welfare state. Every successful economy in the world has a mix of capitalism and welfare, like us...for now. It is vital to distinguish what Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are saying from true Socialism. Here it is defined: "political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." Even if this was what they were advocating, which it clearly is not, "regulated by the community as a whole" is the opposite of Fascism. Here it is defined: "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." Not the community, a dictator, one man rule: the opposite.

And the GOP, as I have noted numerous times, is about the business, for now somewhat lawfully but not always, of the "suppression of opposition."

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Yes, a fascist state would not need gerrymandering.

rumitoid

Hardly once established, but to be established out of a democracy, yes.

Smedley_buzkill

Your outrage is quite selective. Gerrymandering was introduced by Democrats and has been used by the Democratic Party far more than by Republicans. I have yet to find a Democrat who opposed the practice as long as Democrats were the beneficiaries.
Voter suppression ID laws? You mean the supposedly disenfranchised people who cannot vote because they have no ID? The people supposedly affected by this are by and large poor people who receive some sort of government benefits. They MUST possess ID suitable for voting purposes in order to get these benefits. Democrats REAL problem with voter ID is that illegals, felons and corpses have a more difficult time voting. There are currently hundreds of thousands of voters on rolls that are dead, or are barred from voting because of criminal convictions and states are not required to purge their names. In the six states that do not require voter ID how hard would it be to just walk in and vote in the name of several cadavers?
Denying Obama's Supreme Court nominee? They did exactly what then Senator Biden demanded happen when Democrats held sway in the Senate. The Democrats held the Nixon Administration hostage over this very issue not long before the Watergate scandal broke. As a matter of fact, Democrat intransigence cause the longest vacancy in the Supreme Court's history since it became composed of nine justices. I would be willing to bet that you made no such outcry when Obama nominated two Liberals to the Court while the Democrats controlled the Senate. The selection of the Federal Judiciary has become politicized beyond belief and the Democrats are far more guilty of this than the Republicans. The Republicans are just more recent. Your complaints would be far more believable if they contained any references to Liberal Democrat misbehavior. The politicians in your party certainly don't wear halos around their heads.

rumitoid

"The Republicans are just more recent. Your complaints would be far more believable if they contained any references to Liberal Democrat misbehavior. The politicians in your party certainly don't wear halos around their heads." Agreed, but the art has been perfected and it is, I feel, being yielded with greater focus and strength, perhaps not directly for fascism but surely toward maintaining one party's permanent dominance and the hope of a one party system.

peter11937 Loc: NYS

There never are.