Judicial activism wrecks havoc on NJ

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

The Court That Broke Jersey

www.city-journal.org/2012/22_1_nj-supreme-court.html#.Ty-2ErWgeKU.facebook

Article is lengthy, I only included a small portion of it, click link for full text

The state’s activist judiciary has forced taxpayers to finance unprecedented educational and housing regimes.

Squelching rumors this past fall of a presidential run, New Jersey governor Chris Christie observed that he had lots more to do to fix a “broken” state. He wasn’t kidding: though already the nation’s most heavily taxed state, New Jersey can balance its budget only by ignoring billions of dollars in employee pension liabilities and by slashing aid to struggling local governments. Christie has pushed through reforms that cut spending and cap property-tax increases. But he has only begun to grapple with an institution that bears much of the responsibility for the state’s fiscal woes: the New Jersey Supreme Court.

For half a century now, New Jersey has been home to the most activist state appellate court in America. Lauded by proponents of “living” constitutions who urge courts to make policy instead of interpret the law as written, the New Jersey Supreme Court has profoundly transformed the Garden State by seizing control of school funding, hijacking zoning powers from towns and cities to increase subsidized housing, and nullifying taxpayer protections in the state constitution. Its undemocratic actions have blown apart the state’s finances and led to ill-conceived and ineffective policies. If you want to understand what rule by liberal judges looks like on the state level, you need only look at New Jersey, which is teetering on bankruptcy though it remains one of America’s wealthiest states.

In January, Christie nominated two new members to the court, appointments that have the capacity to reshape the seven-member panel. But taming the court won’t be easy, even for the pugnacious Christie, whose initial efforts to reform it met ferocious resistance. “I don’t think the supreme court has any business being involved in setting the budget of the state government,” Christie complained last year. Yet it is involved, extensively—and that must change if Jersey taxpayers are ever to find relief.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

This, by the way, is the reason I am so vehemently opposed to any "Balanced Budget Amendment" to the US Constitution. It is NOT a conservative idea, a conservative idea is to hold Congress accountable. We get a BBA and we will have a Supreme Court ordering tax increases. It will have unintended consequences it's proponents cannot even begin to grasp. We do NOT need to make the budget a Constitutional issue- an issue for the Courts. The power of the purse lies with the House and the process of divided government working it out-- and the voters holding them accountable.