The Virginia Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling that nullified the vote of the people of Virginia isn’t surprising to me, since I’ve been following South Dakota politics. South Dakota was the first state to include the right to citizen initiatives in the state constitution. This piece shows how the South Dakota legislature has been working hard to make sure that citizens won’t exercise their pesky rights. The 2020 initiative to legalize marijuana in South Dakota was overturned by a judicial ruling on a technicality about the way it was drafted. There’s nothing that Republicans hate more than the will of the people.
(It’s also interesting to note that the history of recent initiatives [pdf] in this very red state include legalizing recreational and medical marijuana, as well as expanding Medicaid eligiblity. More evidence on the bifurcation between people’s beliefs on issues vs their beliefs on party affiliation.)
The writers at the Downballot have an idea on how to overturn the decision: lower the mandatory retirement age for the court and appoint an all new one. Sure, why not? is my response to that. In that AOC interview I referenced over the weekend, she made the point that justices overruling legislative acts is a balance of power, but overruling citizen initiatives is fundamentally anti-democratic and, frankly, disgusting. These lawyers need to be taken down a peg or two. If they’re going to make the law into a joke, then Democrats can start acting like Republicans and find legislative loopholes to shut them down.
Also, apparently Virginia is going to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, who if they’re consistent, would allow it, because they’ve ruled that partisan gerrymandering is A-OK. I’m sure they’ll find some made-up reason why, in this particular case, if you squint at it and look at it in just the right light, this one thing is not like the others.
It was interesting that CO-1 primary candidate Melat Kiros’ take on Supreme Court reform was 18-year term limits applied retroactively, while AOC’s version is 13 justices for the 13 federal circuits. So even the Democrats who support reform haven’t coalesced around a solution. My take: por qué no los dos? Anyway, we have two years to figure this out, and figure it out we should, or we won’t get anywhere. In the meantime, every state (including Minnesota) where re-districting will pick up more Democratic House seats should-redistrict. That’s bloody obvious to everyone but Amy Klobuchar, apparently.
