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July 15, 2004

Democracy Denied: Day Three

As is often the case, Joel Rosenberg has the essential take on Judge Finley's idiotic ruling on Tuesday regarding Minnesota's Shall Issue law.

The ruling makes a specious claim - that "omnibus" bills (bills with multiple "sub-bills", if you will, attached) are unconstitutional; the MN Supreme Court, of course, has ruled on this in the past, saying there must be a "filament" of context connecting the bills in an omnibus bill:

The DNR bill, to which the MCPPA was attached, had licensing and training provisions involving firearms, via a "bridge amendment." Obviously, there's more than a "filament" of connection between licensing and training provisions about firearms for hunting, and licensing and training provisions about firearms being carried for personal protection.

Now, were the Supreme Court to take the position that the old "filament" rule has been replaced by the judge's rather, err, unique position, it would endanger all omnibus legislation, previously passed. And omnibus bills that have been passed include not only tax bills, spending bills, but crime bills. There's been something like 500 of them passed in the last ten years; many have been challenged, and the only challenge ever upheld was the one I referenced above [an irrelevant "prevailing wage" bill stuck into an utterly unrelated bill, a DFL effort in the 2000 session].

Rosenberg continues:
Some of the implications of Finley's radical position -- an omnibus bill, even when the various matters covered have a strong connection, is unconstitutional, and that no other aspects of it need to be discussed -- are obvious...(Hell, was the original version of 624.714 [Minnesota's old discretionary issue law, from 1974] passed as part of an omnibus bill? I dunno -- but if it is, by Finley's precedent, it's unconstitutional, too, and there's no statutory bar on people eligible to possess firearms carrying them in public at all, even without a permit.)

Which is why a stay upon appeal is virtually certain. Letting this precedent loose isn't something that the judges are going to want to do.

More to come.

Posted by Mitch at July 15, 2004 06:00 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Logic and supreme courts rarely have much in common these days. Here in Washington, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to charge someone for murder just because they killed someone unintentionally while committing a crime.

Felony murder is a common concept to my knowledge, but that didn't stop five judges from throwing it out and applying their ruling, /their/ law, retroactively.

These shenanigans make me look back to systems like Imperial Germany where the courts were subservient to the other arms.

Posted by: Aodhan at July 15, 2004 09:33 AM
hi