Trondheim on "Bono"

[minionofmidas]

Lewis Trondheim speaking in Moscow, Idaho
This weekend, the Supreme Court has declared the Unwed and Teenager Mothers Protection Bill unconstitutional.
My initial response was shock and outrage.
I've pondered this ruling for several hours now, and I now have more mixed feelings about it.
The Supreme Court argued for a very strict interpretation of clauses 16 and 17 of the Powers Amendment. I would not have argued the same way, but the Justices' interpretation is certainly valid. The real problem lies with the Constitution.
Therefore I have proposed to the Constitutional Convention to include a "General Welfare" clause, modelled on the same clause in the US Constitution, in the Atlas Constitution.
They also struck down the bill because it dictated to the regions how to spend money appropriated to them. I would have to read the relevant sections of the Constitution very well, but it is quite possible that I would have actually concurred on this part of the verdict.

However, the Justices went further. Even though it was not even strictly necessary to arrive at their verdict, they pronounced:

Furthermore, this bill violates the equal protection clause of the Civil Liberties Amendment.  By only applying to unwed and teenage mothers, this bill discriminates against certain women on the basis of marital status.

Now, the equal protection clause states "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Just before, the Court argues for a very strict interpretation of the Constitutional text, and now they come up with THIS?
On that basis - that the equal protection clause forbids discrimination on the basis of marital status - you would have to strike all those provisions in the Tax Code that put a married couple in a better situation financially than two unrelated persons making the same wages.
Worse, the thrust of the argument seems to be that the equal protection clause forbids laws that discriminate - that differentiate between individuals that are not alike.
This doctrine would strike down any law that actually makes a difference in people's lives on the very grounds that it makes a difference in people's lives.
This is a horrible decision, and it will be very hard to defeat its ill effects. Essentially the only options would be to repeal or modify the Equal Protection Clause - which noone can want, seriously - or to get a better Suprime Court bench. As the Justices have not in my opinion committed any impeachable offense, this will test your patience.

The Justice who cast the deciding vote in this decision, the  Honorable* John Dibble, has been nominated and confirmed to the Court just days ago. His position on the Teenage and Unwed Mothers Protection Act was known at the time. Yet the same Senators that had voted for the Act confirmed him with very little debate.
Thence, if there is one lesson to be learned from this sad affair, it is this: Senators, be more cautious with lifetime appointments. A LOT more cautious. If you feel that somebody's take on the meaning of the constitution is radically different from yours, DO NOT confirm that person, whatever their record may be, however nice blokes they may be. YOU have the power to control who makes it onto the bench, do not waste it anymore.

* Is that the right term of address? What is the right term of address? Whatever it is, assume that I used it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My reason for vote "Aye" on the Dibble confirmation was the (sadly mistaken) assumption that he would leave his ideology at the door and that someone with my views voting to confirm someone with his views would help heal the bitterness that has overcome Atlasia of late.

[minionofmidas]

My reason for vote "Aye" on the Dibble confirmation was the (sadly mistaken) assumption that he would leave his ideology at the door and that someone with my views voting to confirm someone with his views would help heal the bitterness that has overcome Atlasia of late.

Yes, I know that...the reason why I didn't urge Senators to vote "no" in the vote thread is that I felt it would be seen as bitter and spiteful.

[KEmperor]

Thence, if there is one lesson to be learned from this sad affair, it is this: Senators, be more cautious with lifetime appointments. A LOT more cautious. If you feel that somebody's take on the meaning of the constitution is radically different from yours, DO NOT confirm that person, whatever their record may be, however nice blokes they may be. YOU have the power to control who makes it onto the bench, do not waste it anymore.

While I disagree with most of this, I agree with this strongly.  I have repeatedly urged Senators not to rubber stamp people.

[John Dibble]

However, the Justices went further. Even though it was not even strictly necessary to arrive at their verdict, they pronounced:

Furthermore, this bill violates the equal protection clause of the Civil Liberties Amendment.  By only applying to unwed and teenage mothers, this bill discriminates against certain women on the basis of marital status.

Now, the equal protection clause states "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Just before, the Court argues for a very strict interpretation of the Constitutional text, and now they come up with THIS?
On that basis - that the equal protection clause forbids discrimination on the basis of marital status - you would have to strike all those provisions in the Tax Code that put a married couple in a better situation financially than two unrelated persons making the same wages.
Worse, the thrust of the argument seems to be that the equal protection clause forbids laws that discriminate - that differentiate between individuals that are not alike.
This doctrine would strike down any law that actually makes a difference in people's lives on the very grounds that it makes a difference in people's lives.
This is a horrible decision, and it will be very hard to defeat its ill effects. Essentially the only options would be to repeal or modify the Equal Protection Clause - which noone can want, seriously - or to get a better Suprime Court bench. As the Justices have not in my opinion committed any impeachable offense, this will test your patience.

*sigh* Do I have to go through this a third time?

Anyways, how we resulted in this particular part of our decision was based on an argument presented by the plaintiff, Bono. At the time, the only person who was making any arguments was Texasgurl, who had unfortunately been arguing rather emotionally rather than logically and legally(things like "What's wrong with having a safety net?", when the question at hand was constitutionality rather than right or wrong), which unfortunately resulted in me and KEmperor having a case of 'groupthink' that resulted in this part of the ruling. Had a more logical/legal argument been presented, this might not have occured. Since then, we have changed our minds on this part - particularly due to the legal argument in the case commentary by Peter Bell - so it is unlikely this will be used in the future by this current court, and definitely not by this Justice.

Also, by the time we had deliberated this, the bill was already declared unconstitutional, and we were not out to destroy it or anything like that. We probably could have gone further in declaring it unconstitutional if we wished to do so, in at least one or two ways, but we only deliberated this because it was an argument presented and thusly we felt it needed to be resolved.

My reason for vote "Aye" on the Dibble confirmation was the (sadly mistaken) assumption that he would leave his ideology at the door and that someone with my views voting to confirm someone with his views would help heal the bitterness that has overcome Atlasia of late.

Do I have to go through this again too? I left my ideology at the door, so to speak, but I still have to do a job - interpret the Constitution and lower laws, and whether the two are compatible. All interpretation is based on some sort of opinion - I couldn't very well do my job if I had no opinion on anything. So, I kept my ideology regarding the Constitution - strict constructionist, which was a known factor - as I would have to to do the job. If you believe I could have left my way of interpretation at the door and still manage to do my job, I'd like to ask how I should go about doing that?

I did not regard any feelings I had towards welfare or the particular bill - I only regarded whether or not the bill fit into my interpretation of the constitution, which it did not in many ways. I've also mentioned that Section 6 of the bill was constitutional, even I do oppose that section along with the rest of the bill, because it is clearly so under Clause 15 of the Powers Amendment, so my personal feelings towards welfare really did not have anything to do with the ruling.

[John Dibble]

My reason for vote "Aye" on the Dibble confirmation was the (sadly mistaken) assumption that he would leave his ideology at the door and that someone with my views voting to confirm someone with his views would help heal the bitterness that has overcome Atlasia of late.

Yes, I know that...the reason why I didn't urge Senators to vote "no" in the vote thread is that I felt it would be seen as bitter and spiteful.

It's politics, I wouldn't have taken it personally. As I believe I said in the hearing, I'm always open to constructive criticism.

[minionofmidas]

My reason for vote "Aye" on the Dibble confirmation was the (sadly mistaken) assumption that he would leave his ideology at the door and that someone with my views voting to confirm someone with his views would help heal the bitterness that has overcome Atlasia of late.

Yes, I know that...the reason why I didn't urge Senators to vote "no" in the vote thread is that I felt it would be seen as bitter and spiteful.

It's politics, I wouldn't have taken it personally. As I believe I said in the hearing, I'm always open to constructive criticism.

It's not just about your reaction...

[The Duke]

Lewis, concerns about Dibble not being able to seperate his ideology from his decisions were brought up in the confirmation hearings.  But since no one could produce any evidence that he COULD NOT seperate his ideology from his jurisprudence, we had only his word of honor to go on.

I'm not sure he would get confirmed if he were nominated again.

[minionofmidas]

Since then, we have changed our minds on this part - particularly due to the legal argument in the case commentary by Peter Bell - so it is unlikely this will be used in the future by this current court, and definitely not by this Justice.

Good.
(Of course, you recognize this is a campaign speech directed at the voters in Idaho. Not all of them read the government thread. )

My reason for vote "Aye" on the Dibble confirmation was the (sadly mistaken) assumption that he would leave his ideology at the door and that someone with my views voting to confirm someone with his views would help heal the bitterness that has overcome Atlasia of late.

Do I have to go through this again too? I left my ideology at the door, so to speak, but I still have to do a job - interpret the Constitution and lower laws, and whether the two are compatible. All interpretation is based on some sort of opinion - I couldn't very well do my job if I had no opinion on anything. So, I kept my ideology regarding the Constitution - strict constructionist, which was a known factor - as I would have to to do the job. If you believe I could have left my way of interpretation at the door and still manage to do my job, I'd like to ask how I should go about doing that?

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Yes, that's an ideology that's indeed impossible to shed as a Supreme Court justice...you might as well demand of a Senator to shed his political beliefs.

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So is that part of the bill still on the lawbooks or what? I don't remember reading that in the verdict. (Runs away to look up what Section 6 actually is)

[John Dibble]

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So is that part of the bill still on the lawbooks or what? I don't remember reading that in the verdict. (Runs away to look up what Section 6 actually is)

No, a previous case precedent (Texasgurl vs. Fritz I believe) makes ruling one section of a bill unconstitutional strike down the whole thing. I've also mentioned that it was my initial thought to only strike down unconstutional sections, but in the interest of keeping a stable system(and fair, I suppose, since it would be hypocritical to do it with one bill and not another) I decided not to argue the issue. This was the reason we didn't state it in the verdict - the entire bill was struck down, so it was not considered relevant. If we don't say anything specific, you can probably assume that a section is constitutional, or at the very least was not argued on.

Just reference, section 6 dealt with giving those on the program scholarships for college.

[minionofmidas]

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So is that part of the bill still on the lawbooks or what? I don't remember reading that in the verdict. (Runs away to look up what Section 6 actually is)

No, a previous case precedent (Texasgurl vs. Fritz I believe) makes ruling one section of a bill unconstitutional strike down the whole thing. I've also mentioned that it was my initial thought to only strike down unconstutional sections, but in the interest of keeping a stable system(and fair, I suppose, since it would be hypocritical to do it with one bill and not another) I decided not to argue the issue. This was the reason we didn't state it in the verdict - the entire bill was struck down, so it was not considered relevant. If we don't say anything specific, you can probably assume that a section is constitutional, or at the very least was not argued on.

Just reference, section 6 dealt with giving those on the program scholarships for college.

I'd looked that up by now.

[Peter]

No, a previous case precedent (Texasgurl vs. Fritz I believe) makes ruling one section of a bill unconstitutional strike down the whole thing. I've also mentioned that it was my initial thought to only strike down unconstutional sections, but in the interest of keeping a stable system(and fair, I suppose, since it would be hypocritical to do it with one bill and not another) I decided not to argue the issue.

Its incredibly bad jurisprudence to think that one part of a Law being unconstitutional causes another part to be automatically unconstitutional. Off hand I can think of no real US case where a separable Law was struck when only half was unconstitutional. If I bothered to check I doubt I could find one. In this case you were lucky since the Act was non-separable because everything was dependent on people qualifying for the program of clause 1/3.

The Court also needs to realise that everything it ever says is mandated to be taken to a logical conclusion. In this case, the equal protection clause argument, as acknowledged, was wrong, and could cause future problems.

[John Dibble]

No, a previous case precedent (Texasgurl vs. Fritz I believe) makes ruling one section of a bill unconstitutional strike down the whole thing. I've also mentioned that it was my initial thought to only strike down unconstutional sections, but in the interest of keeping a stable system(and fair, I suppose, since it would be hypocritical to do it with one bill and not another) I decided not to argue the issue.

Its incredibly bad jurisprudence to think that one part of a Law being unconstitutional causes another part to be automatically unconstitutional. Off hand I can think of no real US case where a separable Law was struck when only half was unconstitutional. If I bothered to check I doubt I could find one. In this case you were lucky since the Act was non-separable because everything was dependent on people qualifying for the program of clause 1/3.

Well, as I said, I would have preferred to strike down only the unconstitutional sections, but the procedure was established in a previous case that wasn't during my time.

Also, we aren't saying that because the parts of the bill that weren't unconstitutional were struck down with the rest of the bill that the actions in them are unconstitutional - as I've said before and I'll say again now, the sections not explicitly declared unconstitutional may be put in a new bill on their own.

The Court also needs to realise that everything it ever says is mandated to be taken to a logical conclusion. In this case, the equal protection clause argument, as acknowledged, was wrong, and could cause future problems.

Under normal circumstances, it could be a problem. However, with the new constitution on the way I doubt it will. Also, if the issue is ever brought to court again, the same decision will not be made regarding that clause(provided it or anything resembling it is around at the time). The real Supreme Court has reversed decisions before, I would assume it would be safe for us to do so as long as it is not politically motivated, which in this case it isn't - we just feel we were wrong.

[Lt. Gov. Immy]

Lewis Trondheim speaking in Moscow, Idaho

Nothing really to say but yeah Moscow!!!!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Its incredibly bad jurisprudence to think that one part of a Law being unconstitutional causes another part to be automatically unconstitutional. Off hand I can think of no real US case where a separable Law was struck when only half was unconstitutional. If I bothered to check I doubt I could find one. In this case you were lucky since the Act was non-separable because everything was dependent on people qualifying for the program of clause 1/3.

Most complicated US laws include in them a section named Seperability  that explicitly states that the various parts of it are to be considered seperable (or in rare cases that some parts ate seperable while others are not seperable.)  It would seem like a real time and ink saver if the status of seperability was the default but that seems to not be the case under US law.