Centralizing Constitutional Cases: Good Policy or Retaliation?
Democratic legislators are pushing a bill to allow any constitutional law challenge brought or filed in a circuit court to be transferred at the request of a defendant to the court in Anne Arundel County, home of Maryland's capitol.
The bill would allow all constitutional cases to be heard in Annapolis, where judges can develop a constitutional expertise, said Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), who joined Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-Baltimore) to introduce the legislation.
But Republicans allege that the bill is merely political retaliation for a lawsuit filed by GOP legislative leaders against the Democrat-led General Assembly to revoke the $1.4 billion in tax increases passed during the special session this fall.
Carroll County Circuit Court Judge Thomas F. Stansfield dismissed the partisan legal challenge in January, rejecting the Republicans' contention that record-keeping errors made by legislative staff should result in the tax legislation being nullified.
The Raskin-Rosenberg bill seeks to stop so-called forum shopping, in which a litigant files suit in a court that he or she thinks will be sympathetic. Some Democrats say they think Republicans did this when they filed their tax lawsuit in Carroll County.
"It is an effort to halt partisan forum shopping," Raskin said. "This is a modest bill that simply tries to bring complex constitutional cases in the judicial circuit that includes Annapolis."
But Del. Michael D. Smigiel Sr. (R-Cecil), one of the plaintiffs in the GOP lawsuit, said the proposal is "a direct result" of his suit.
"The irony is that we lost our case," Smigiel said. "If we were 'forum shopping,' we certainly didn't do it very well."
Raskin said his bill ensures that judges hearing such cases are constitutional experts.
"The judges in Anne Arundel County who oversee these cases develop a constitutional expertise that judges in other parts of the state don't have," Raskin said.
Referencing Stansfield's opinion, Raskin said, "the decision was replete with errors, and even went so far as to uphold laws by the General Assembly that we never passed."
Smigiel said that Raskin's is a "fallacious argument."
"It's the Democrats trying to expand control of the legislature now into the judiciary," Smigiel said. "I think these are very dangerous signals to send. They put a chilling effect on the independence of the judiciary."
-- Philip Rucker
By Anne Bartlett |
March 3, 2008; 10:01 AM ET
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Posted by: Anonymous | March 3, 2008 12:02 PM
Is Senator Raskin saying that Montgomery County Circuit Court judges are not qualified to hear cases with constitutional issues? Really? I haven't found that to be the case over the past 35 years.
Posted by: Robin Ficker Broker Robin Realty | March 3, 2008 1:44 PM
Forum-shopping is nothing compared to the forum-confinement that this bill would do.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 3, 2008 2:01 PM
I feel very confident saying that Raskin is not anyone's golfing buddy. He is however a constitutional law professor and interested in ensuring correct decisions. Refer to the quote "the decision was replete with errors, and even went so far as to uphold laws by the General Assembly that we never passed." If you believe this is incorrect, please, tell us how it is incorrect.
Further, this bill requires the defendant to request such a transfer. It would not be automatic. Delegate Smigiel and others here are pre-supposing that somehow this would benefit only "liberal" purposes.
Posted by: Becky | March 3, 2008 2:39 PM
If any group didn't know what they were doing in the special session it was the State Senate. They originated and passed without public hearings a 6% computer tax which will drive out the geeks and dumb down Maryland. The increased the sales tax 20% to 6% while our neighbor has no sales tax at all. They passed an income tax hike of which the 16% of Marylanders living in Montgomery County will pay over 50%. While Sen Raskin is asking for a change in forums, I wish he would ask my State Senator, Rob Garagiola, who was the deciding vote for all this on a 24-23 vote, to resign and change from the State Senate forum to the private sector forum where his employers have to pay all these tax increases.
Posted by: IRobin Ficker Broker Robin Realty | March 3, 2008 4:18 PM
When sombody tells you that the Constitution, the law of the land, is so esoteric that only certain favored ones can tell the masses what it says, watch out! That person is a dictator in the making.
Posted by: Is the Constitution Esoteric? | March 4, 2008 12:54 AM
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The AA County court is more sympathetic to our lawyer lawmakers in Annapolis. They're already golf buddies and it's easier to work deals this way. That's what this is all about.
...and the last I heard, the GOP case is being heard by the MD High Court on March 11th.