Will Chris Christie Really Tell The NJ Supreme Court To Go Blow If It Rules Against Him On Education Cuts?

He says he's thinking about it.

A lawsuit is pressed against him by a liberal advocacy group, relying on a series of cases cooked up by liberals, which claim that the state constitution's guarantee of a "thorough and efficient" education means, of course, that more money must be spent on poor-district schools than affluent ones.

Christie has canceled $1.7 billion of useless extra funding for failing schools, and if the Supreme Court decides once again to overstep its bounds and act as a super-legislature, he just might ignore its ruling.

I think it was Andrew Jackson who said of a US Supreme Court decision (regarding Indians' claims on land seized by the government), "The court has made its ruling; now let it enforce it."

“That’s an option,” Christie replied [in response to a question suggesting the possibility of simply ignoring the court]. “I’m not going to sit here and speculate. … There are a whole bunch of options in the contingency plan.”

Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts last night would not say how seriously the governor is considering not complying.

Christie went on the attack against the state Supreme Court, a day after it heard oral arguments about whether he violated the state constitution by cutting public school funding last year.

Christie also took aim at Associate Justice Barry Albin, singling him out as an example of how “judges have lost their sense of place in our democracy.”

We always talk about our guys just doing this, just exercising their own judgment about the constitution and ignoring the courts.

If he does this, I tell you, he is The Man, without question.

I don't think he will. We never do this. But, it is possible: these court rulings are generally unpopular. If you're going to have a constitutional crisis challenging the pretend-authority of the court to act as super-legislator, this is as good as any issue to have it over.

posted by Ace at 03:00 PM

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