Live from the Nuke Free Zone

If you’ve ever read the Federalist Papers, you note that they describe the judicial branch as the weakest branch of government.  The President has an army.  The Congress can disburse funding.  All the Supreme Court has is the respect of the other branches for the rule of law, and the expectation that they will thus […]

I may not have been fond of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on redistricting (why redistrict if new population data hasn’t come in?), but today’s (quotes from Findlaw) is much better.
Once again, the Supreme Court has called Bush on the carpet for blatantly disregarding the Constitution in detaining people without charge, lawyers, evidence, or appeal in […]

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Texas redistricting was mostly legal; one district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander intended to push Hispanics out of Congress, but on principle states can redistrict whenever they want.
Therefore, expect to see states redistricting whenever they want. Colorado and Georgia have already done so, and it will now be […]

Say you’re a conscientious state government official who wants to increase your state’s global profile. One simple move: take your state’s web site, say www.utah.gov, and give a selected subset of that information in another language — say, taxes and work-force services, maybe driver’s licenses, a few other things that would be of interest to […]

Texas’ Governor Rick Perry has just signed a law ordering that schools deemed failing for four years in a row be taken over by outside entities, most likely private groups. This is about the most moronic idea I’ve ever heard; it forces dedicated staffers to give up and leave. Most likely any of them that […]

The June 6 primary elections in California pitted State Treasurer Phil Angelides and State Controller Steve Westly against each other for the Democratic nomination for Governor. While the Democratic Party favourite Angelides came out as the winner, it was an awfully close race with a final margin of about 48%-44%.