Adding to the drama on Friday was Weaver's visit to Southfield for a news conference to let loose a rant about Young over a phone conversation he had with other justices in 2006.
Young, she said, "shows a complete disrespect for women. And a complete disrespect for all African Americans."
She was referring to Young's use of the N-word in a passing reference to a judge who was removed from office for making racist remarks and when he mimicked a "Saturday Night Live" catchphrase, "You ignorant slut."
Weaver, whose relationship with Young and other conservative justices on the court soured after she was denied a second term as chief justice, said she sent a memo to her colleagues at the time relaying her dismay at the comments and asking the justices to act with more decorum.
"Instead, it became the most disorderly, unfair and unjust place I've been since my seventh-grade chess club," she said.
Weaver was accompanied by Bishop John Sheard, the African-American pastor of more than 80 Church of God in Christ parishes in Michigan, to validate her outrage over Young's comments.
Political Insider did a double-take the other day when we spied state Supreme Court Justice Alton Davis pulling up to our storied building downtown. There he was, running for statewide office, being ferried around in a Chevrolet Malibu — with OHIO plates. Davis' campaign said the car is a rental; the previous one with Michigan plates was totaled in an accident in Oakland County.
Michigan in the past few months has become a very good place in which to be a plaintiff's attorney. That's not good for the law or the state's economy. Incumbent Justice Bob Young and Wayne Circuit Judge Mary Beth Kelly are the best choices to restore the balance in Michigan law.
A study by the University of Chicago on state high courts found that Michigan's Supreme Court ranked dead last among all of the nation's courts, and 40th for productivity, 42nd for quality of opinions, and 52nd in judicial independence (Oklahoma and Texas have separate high courts for civil and criminal cases). Clearly, this is an institution worthy of the Detroit News high praise.
Ugh. Not only has Mark Brewer been relying on cheap tricks, but he's even into reruns at this point. Two years ago, Supreme Court Justice Cliff Taylor was defeated, in part due to the claim that he fell asleep on the bench. Since it worked once, it'll work a second time, right?
Pictures of a snoozing Justice Robert Young featured in negative ads by the Michigan Democratic Party are nothing more than a lie, according to a YouTube video released by Young's re-election campaign today.
The video matches the pictures to stills captured from tapes of court proceedings. When viewed in context, it appears the Republican-backed justice was blinking, looking down or gesturing while speaking at the bench.
RMGN. The sleeping judge[s]. [T]he Tea Party (which he had nothing to do with, of course). Seriously, enough already.
So a Supreme Court justice that hardly anyone noticed has announced his retirement and all of a sudden the lips of The Experts are all a-flutter with the word “Empathy”.
President Obama reports he wants his nominee to have it; and Republicans are convinced that the word is a secret code for something that eventually ends in the death of free speech, massive roundups of guns by the Secret United Nations World Police, and the Internment Of All The White People In Reeducation Camps Run By Americorps And ACORN And Gay People Who Want To Marry And Are Funded By George Soros.
It is suggested that Evil Activist Judges will trample the Constitution as they create Law out of whole cloth; and that only those who interpret the Constitution just as it was written can bring the proper attitude to the Court.
It sounds like somebody needs to come along and provide a couple of cogent thoughts about this whole empathy thing...and lucky for you, Gentle Reader, we have before us today specific examples of how the quality of empathy can express itself in Court Doctrine.
I've been a website developer for 9 years. While I've been active politically since 2003 (I'm your basic Deanocrat), I've only recently delved into political clients.
Recently, I had the good fortune to be asked to take over as the web developer for the MDP Justice Caucus, devoted to helping elect honest, progressive judges of integrity.
We in the Michigan Justice Caucus are trying to do our part to elect Judge Diane Hathaway, and get rid of the worst Justice (Michigan Lawyers Weekly, Jan. 21, 2008) on what has been rated the most political and least independent Supreme Court in the nation. We are doing a three-phase canvass, lit drop, and Election Day presence in targeted precincts across the state as part of the MDP's overall effort to elect Hathaway. So on top of my own campaign, and my other party work, I'm trying to coordinate volunteers for the targeted precincts in my congressional district.
But a great new ad has been released - some of you may have seen it already - comparing Cliff Taylor with Sleeping Beauty.. yes, he actually slept through the argument of the facts in a case we heard a presentation on at the Justice Caucus meeting at our recent state convention in Lansing.
Here's the ad:
We should have a shot at getting rid of our worst Justice in this, our BEST year. If you would like to help, drop me a line, and let me know where you are. I'll put you in touch with Justice Caucus organizers in your area.
There is a lot of debate in the public space this week over the impact of the United States Supreme Court's ruling that gives detainees in a "holding pattern" at Guantanamo Bay access to the United States Courts for the purpose of presenting petitions of habeas corpus.
It is a generally accepted misunderstanding that the Court's ruling gave new rights to the detainees, which seems to be the issue that is the most controversial.
The purpose of today's discussion is to explain why that view of the ruling is dead wrong...and to offer some thoughts on why this ruling might actually be one of the most important "restraint of government" rulings to have come down the pike in some time.
Right from the start, Ingham County Circuit Judge William Collette struck down the law as unconstitutional. The Michigan Court of Appeals backed him up on it.
But the state Supreme Court said no, the law enlightened the public and encouraged an informed decision-making process. Blame Justices Clifford Taylor, Maura Corrigan, Robert Young Jr. and Stephen Markman for that one.
So, to them, the law didn't violate the state Constitution. Makes you wonder.
My emphasis. The court are supposed to be a neutral arbiter, not an enabler of law that is clearly both bad and not within any sane person's understanding of how things were designed to work. In this case, we didn't get that, and thankfully at least one of the state's newspapers has decided to share with its readers the names of the guilty.
(Less than 24 hours and counting - what do you want to hear? - promoted by LiberalLucy)
It's that time of year again. Time for all of Lansing to gather together on the floor of the State House of Representatives and hear what Governor Jennifer Granholm has to say about the state's accomplishments in 2007 and where we're headed in 2008.
Many of you joined us last year for our State of the State open thread, and it's our hope that everyone will come back next Tuesday. as apparently I'm glutton for punishment because I'll be joining the fray again as an official credentialed member of the press and live-blogging from the Capitol.
The Governor's laid out some hints at what she'll be talking about, and given the craziness that was 2007, expectations are high that anything could go.
What do you think she'll be discussing? What do you want her to address?
On the flip side -
Senate Majority Obstructionist Mike Bishop (R-Lifetime supply of hair gel) won't pass up an opportunity to face the cameras after her speech and I'm sure the yappy House Republican Leader Craig DeRoche (R-Still Irrelevant) has already started preening for his airtime.
Who will the Senate Republicans sacrifice for their official response? Last year Sen. Tom "Milk Toast" George wore the deer-in-headlights look very well, but I doubt that we'll see him again. Personally I'm hoping for Sen. Michelle McManus (R-We're not in Kansas anymore Toto) because if nothing else, it'd make for some entertaining TV, but they are unlikely to put a woman up there to follow Granholm.
You decide - take the poll below and if your candidate for the Republican Response isn't listed, add yours!
Back in November, a bunch of the state's rightwing bloggers apparently got together and had themselves a convention of rightwing bloggers. They even got themselves a few folks to come and address them, including the GOP's state party chairman, Saul Anuzis, who is famous for throwing valuable hours down the rabbit hole that is the Internet.
Someone who attended the event has shared the content of Taylor's speech with me, today, via e-mail. If it is close to being true, then ... wow. It goes, as follows:
The "Liberals" think that they own the online media but since "Conservatives" own the MSM, "Liberals" aren't taken seriously
Told the bloggers to make sure to sign up for weekly talking points from Saul Anuzis and/or Nick DeLeuw.
Lots of jokes made about how "the family in West Michigan" had lots of ideas for future posts and they would come directly from Nick.
Made multiple references to the importance of staying "on message".
Discussed which House/Senate seats were most likely to flip from D to R and how to "attack" those D candidates
Mentioned how the "Liberals" had "gotten to" Justice Elizabeth Weaver and that there was "a plan to make adjustments"
Lots of "rah rah" comments about how he reads RightMichigan every day, how it's up to them to make Michigan safe for families and children, to protect our religious freedoms
There was also apparently a question about how to recruit more women bloggers, to which Taylor said it was unnecessary ... that Nick had it covered (this makes staying on message a snap). Anyway, this is the kind of thing that has made conservative blogging the titanic powerhouse movement that it is ... an echo chamber for repeating talking points offered up by the party chairman.
We kick off the new year profiling a few of the key political races statewide that deserve -- nay, demand -- your attention. Vote, vote, vote these people out of office.--Eric B.
I'm told that Michigan's Supreme Court, in particular the gang of four that routinely puts special interests ahead of the public, is something of a joke among out-of-state lawyers and judges ... so bad is their reputation for rending reason and sanity in pursuit of judicial activism.
We could dig into history from the tenure of Cliff Taylor and create an indictment from his entire record for why booting him from the state Supreme Court should be one of our hottest priorities for 2008, but that's not necessary. We have plenty of lowlights from just 2006-07 that are crying out for recognition (enough that Taylor could have easily been nominated as the state's worst public servant for 2007). Roll the tape:
LANSING (AP) - The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that the Jan. 15 presidential primary can go forward.
But, the Michigan Association of County Clerks says it's too late now to ensure that absentee voters will be able to get their ballots and return them on time.
The state Court of Appeals last week upheld a lower court's opinion that the law setting up the primary is unconstitutional.
State officials asked the Supreme Court to send the case back to Ingham County Circuit Court and have the complaint dismissed.
Updated! (Eric B.) Well, Camus was right ... stupidity has a habit of getting its way. Here is the text of the decision. A snippet:
(J) We respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeals majority that the public purpose served here is merely "incidental[]."
Instead, the "predominant" role that political parties serve in our system of government is informing the public about candidates and ballot proposals and facilitating public debate in the context of such candidates and ballot proposals. This is indisputably a "public purpose" and such purpose appears central to the legislative judgment. Indeed, it is hard to comprehend what alternative purpose the Legislature might have contemplated in enacting MCL 168.615c.
Keep this in mind next November. Cliff Taylor thinks it serves a public service to make it illegal to publish information gathered at public expense and turned over -- exclusively -- to private organizations, who are empowered to do practically anything they want with it ... including sell it.
So do justices Corrigan, Markman, and Young. Keep that in mind when these three names come around for re-election.
I've just received word that an appeal over the primary has been filed with the state Supreme Court. Action:
Action on this application is required by Noon on November 21, 2007, in order to hold the presidential primary election on January 15, 2008.
I'll upload the documentation after running a few errands. There is this, and there is this, which includes the legal argument. They've got by noon Wednesday to get this thing done, or else there won't be enough time to get absentee ballots printed.
The attorney general's office on Monday filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court, asking it to overturn Friday's decision by an appeals court. In a 2-1 ruling, Judges Patrick Meter and Donald Owens objected that a law recently passed by the Legislature setting up the primary would let the state political parties keep track of voters' names and whether they took Democratic or GOP primary ballots but give no public access to that information.
I just got an e-mail in my Inbox. The state Supreme Court refused to review its own decision limiting the scope of who can sue under the Michigan Environmental Protection Act (added) in the case involving Nestle and the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation.
The court decided to apply federal standards of who can sue under Michigan's chief environmental law, a gross act of judicial activism. Even worse was the majority decision, which was dripping with arrogance and contempt for the opinions of the other justices.
In their ruling, the court decided that unless you owned property directly affected by actions taken on a neighboring piece of land, that you cannot sue, despite MEPA provisions giving the power to sue over environmental degradation to anyone in the state. In writing the majority opinion, Justice Robert Young wrote that this, and the principles of interconnectedness, would give the authority for anyone but the Martians to sue.
The ruling has agitated the state's environmentalists, who have used the ruling as a clarion call to remove from office Chief Justice Clifford Taylor in next year's general election, who has also been targeted by the state's Democratic Party.
On top of that, the state's Supreme Court has developed a reputation for an inability to get along. Earlier this year, a huge schism opened and became evident to the public.
Anytime Dave Dempsey writes about Michigan history and the environment, it's worth taking some time to read.
Today, he puts the state Supreme Court's Nestle decision that narrowed who can sue under MEPA in some very valuable context.
Most of us understand exactly how badly an act of activist adjudicating this was, but it's downright galling to read the words of people who drafted the thing in the first place talk about how their intentions were undone by four justices, and how badly flawed their decision making was.
Attorneys for the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation have filed paperwork in an attempt to get the state's Supreme Court to reverse its ruling in who can sue under Michigan's Environmental Protection Act.
"In a larger sense, the decision may have exceeded the Court's judicial power under our constitution and denied these people their first amendment right to petition government to redress wrongs," said James Olson, from Olson, Bzdok & Howard, who represents MCWC, in a press release. "In the immediate sense, the decision ignored a model environmental law passed by our legislature and knocked the teeth out of citizens' individual right to protect the environment," he said.
In the motion, attorneys argue that the state's high court exceeded its authority in using federal standards to determine who can sue and under what circumstances under Michigan law. The motion argues that the state's high court ruling set those standards, and that reliance on the U.S. Supreme Court to set them is not necessary.
This was at the heart of the state Supreme Court's 4-3 decision to narrow lower court rulings in favor of MCWC. The ruling took the facts of the case as presented -- that pumping water from a Mecosta County sanctuary had harmed property rights of neighbors -- but said that because the neighbors weren't directly harmed by lowered water levels on property they didn't own, the neighbors couldn't sue to protect them.
An appeals court had sided with the citizens group on this in a 2-1 vote, on the grounds that the affected lakes, rivers, and wetlands were all connected.
The decision was criticized as an act of judicial activism in two of the dissenting decisions, as well as most everyone originally associated with the passage of the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, including former Gov. William Milliken. The law was intended to give Michigan citizens broad powers to protect the environment.
Critics of the decision said that the high court's ruling gutted the law, and the ruling fanned the flames of criticism aimed at Chief Justice Clifford Taylor, who Democrats have said they plan to target in next year's general election. Taylor is the only justice up for re-election next year.
On a 4-3 vote, the Michigan Supreme Court has narrowed the scope by which its citizens can sue over environmental damage, finding that although citizens could sue over lowered water levels on some of the water, they couldn't seek to stop damage on others because they don't directly use them.
Under the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, private citizens were given access to the state's court system to stop or prevent damage to the environment. Those rights were challenged by Nestle Waters, which lost court battles at the trial and appellate court levels over lowered lake levels in Mecosta County near the company's first bottling facility. The challenge was based primarily on a 2004 ruling by the same state Supreme Court that found that not the law didn't apply to anyone.
The corporation took the fight to the Supreme Court, arguing that a citizen's group didn't have standing to sue because the company was causing damage to lakes and rivers its residents didn't own.
The person that said Supreme Court business was boring has obviously never heard of Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice 'Conservative' Cliff Taylor
Mark Brewer, Michigan Democratic Party Chair, announced that the MDP purchased the taxpayer-funded car used by Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Cliff Taylor at a public auction on Saturday. The car, a 2005 Ford Five Hundred, had just over 52,000 miles on it, compared to Brewer's MDP Ford Taurus with nearly 250,000 miles.
If you recall, Conservative Cliff was recently quoted in the Detroit Free Press bragging about his flagrant use of the vehicle operated on your dime -
Supreme Court Chief Justice Clifford W. Taylor said he uses his car, a 2005 Ford 500, for work, commuting, law school visits, ceremonial functions, and occasional trips to the grocery and for dinners out. While his vacations don't typically involve a state car, he said, using one "would be perfectly permissible."
"That is the reigning interpretation. I've never heard anyone challenge it."
Why? Just because Saul likes to tool around in his Cadillac Escalade (License Plate: MI GOP) and Amway Guy enjoys his Navigator (often without his seat belt), and they never say anything? Apparently money speaks louder than the voice of justice for Tilted Taylor.
Calling Taylor the "most prominent defender of use of this perk", Brewer said the MDP would use the car to fight against the abuses that Taylor stood for.
But don't fool yourself into thinking this is a partisan issue. Check out what our good friends over at the MSM have been saying about Taylor the Terrible, and the best one by far comes from The Freep's editorial on 1/7/07 - Odor in the Court.
Also from the Freep, Brian Dickerson (4/25/07) had this to say about Taylor -
Have Taylor and his fellow justices been too busy reversing industry unfriendly jury verdicts to notice that none of them has made a car payment since gas was $1.25 a gallon?
Brewer stated that the car will be used for MDP business and even though it's not a taxpayer-funded car, he won't be using it for dinners out and grocery getting. He's got his personal vehicle for that.
Our discussion of the 2008 elections continues today with our focus shifting to the reelection of U.S. Senator Carl Levin, to our challenge of Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Cliff Taylor, and our efforts to keep the majority in the State House. Watch my video below and tell me what you think:
