N.H. House Assault on State Judiciary Continues
State House Speaker Bill O’Brien has repeatedly displayed “an apparent discomfort” with the constitutional balance of powers, dismissing the executive and the judiciary branches when they don’t see things his way.
The Speaker’s assault on the state judiciary continues with two House resolutions attempting to unilaterally limit the courts’ jurisdiction.
Can a state legislature simply pass a law, or issue a resolution, declaring the state’s courts have no jurisdiction to hear certain cases regarding the state constitution? A special committee of New Hampshire’s House is set to find out next week.
HCR 26, would simply declare prior state supreme court decisions on school funding, known as the Claremont cases, nonbinding.
HB 233, a proposed statute change, declares distributions made from the education trust fund “shall not be subject to judicial review.”
Earlier this month, the Speaker introduced yet another House resolution, this one attacking the state Supreme Court for a “demonstrated hostility to representative government and its propensity unconstitutionally to interfere with the political process.”
The House Speaker and Majority Leader are prime sponsors of HR 13, a resolution “repudiating” a New Hampshire Supreme Court advisory opinion issued June 15 about whether the legislature can compel the state’s attorney general join the suit lodged by the Florida Attorney General and other states against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”).
While the memo focuses on the June 2011 advisory opinion, the resolution gives a list of cases going back to 1983 that purport to prove the supreme court’s “demonstrated hostility to representative government”. Moreover, it cites cases as far back as the 1800s, including Merrill v. Sherburne 1 N.H. 199 (1818), which members of the House had previously tried in early 2011 to declare void using a similar resolution. HR 13 concludes, in effect, that the Senate should just ignore the advisory opinion.
