Sound Politics: Flash: Judge Bridges rules against Democrats

February 04, 2005

Flash: Judge Bridges rules against Democrats

Intervenors' motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Question: Does this court or any court have the jurisdiction to rule on an election contest involving the governor?

Ruling: Cites Article III Section IV of the State Constitution. "Contested elections for such officers shall be decided by the legislature in such manner as shall be determined by law." Agrees with Republicans and Secretary of State that this confers upon the legislature to delegate authority for election contests, and the legislature in fact passed a law in 1977 delegating authority for all election contests to the courts.

Bridges denies Democrats motion to dismiss!

UPDATE: Bridges also just denied motion to dismiss for improper venue.

One of our readers who is an attorney comments:

In handing down his decision from the bench this morning, Judges Bridges cited among his reasons a principle "the Legislature can't delegate it's power to make law; but it can make a law to delegate its power." In otherwords, this election contest exercises adjudication power, not lawmaking power. A legally conducted election contest is not judicial activism. After reaching this result, he said that he is mindful of the importance of judicial restraint. In the future I wonder whether the D's will be such advocates of judicial restraint? I bet they won't!

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 04, 2005 10:53 AM | Email This

Comments

1. Hooray!

Posted by: J.C. on February 4, 2005 10:57 AM

2. surprise surprise.....the republicans knew what they were doing when they chose chelan

Posted by: jim on February 4, 2005 10:59 AM

3. Hey Jim....The Republicans knew what they were doing when they chose Rossi as their candidate...and the Republicans knew what they were doing when they chose to be Republicans!! REVOTE!!

Posted by: J.C. on February 4, 2005 11:02 AM

4. Sounded like a reasoned discussion to me, but I am not a suit.

I was going to say surprise, surprise- there actually is a judge who reads and makes his decision based upon the law and not what he wants it to be.

Obviously, this judge does not believe in a living and breathin constitution.

Posted by: TED on February 4, 2005 11:03 AM

5. It doesn't answer the question conclusively, though. We will see these arguments again on the appeal, should Judge Bridges rule in Rossi's favor. I suspect he knows it's going to go to the Supreme Court anyway, and is more than happy to let them deal with the question of jurisdiction.

Posted by: Nathan Azinger on February 4, 2005 11:05 AM

6. JC: Actually, Rossi said yes after all the better folks said no first. And if they had picked the right candidate, he would have gotten more votes than the opponent!

Posted by: jim on February 4, 2005 11:13 AM

7. Right on! RE-VOTE.

Posted by: TADD on February 4, 2005 11:15 AM

8. First of all...Rossi did get more votes. Remember counts one and two...before all the mystery ballots appeared...and before all the "mistakes" were uncovered...??

Posted by: J.C. on February 4, 2005 11:22 AM

9. Election contest live streaming on King 5 news now which is being held in a lecture format.

Posted by: Erik on February 4, 2005 11:22 AM

10. To Jim:
Do you care that the whole election process is so flawed that it could deny a canidate you like the office he/she actually won? Or is your postion in all this that it doesn't matter because your canidate is sitting in office now? I thought the-end-justifies-the-means thinking went out the window in grade school.

Posted by: Victor on February 4, 2005 11:47 AM

11. What do you mean the end doesn't justify the means "going out in grade school"? We got rid of Saddam, and it's worth any price in soldiers and dollars. It just doesn't matter!

Posted by: Hallelujah on February 4, 2005 11:49 AM

12. Hallelujah, you're absolutely right!

Like John F. Kennedy said - WE'LL PAY ANY PRICE. And by the way - he was talking about SPREADING FREEDOM AROUND THE WORLD, not building a monorail.

Word up.

Posted by: Larry on February 4, 2005 12:41 PM

13. Yes, so the end justifies the means when it comes to spreading freedom around the world.

Just don't raise my taxes. It ain't worth THAT much! : )

Posted by: Hallelujah on February 4, 2005 01:33 PM

14. Yeah Jim..

Pipe down. Rossi did have more votes until our side found some for CG in the oddest of places, even to me.

The re-vote will happen and then we can see once and for all that the best cheater will win, unless of course the pruple finger thing catches on.....

Posted by: headless lucy on February 4, 2005 03:51 PM