Democracy in Peril

By Steve Sebelius

SUPREME SCREW-UP: The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken--sort of--and let the ruling of the Nevada Supreme Court in Angle vs. Guinn be the law of the land.

God help us.

Angle vs. Guinn was an appeal of the Nevada Supreme Court's ruling that the state constitutional requirement to get a vote of two-thirds of both houses of the Legislature to raise taxes could be set aside due to the imperative to fund education. (The ruling grew out of the standoff over taxes during the 2003 Legislature.)

It was a bad ruling in every sense of the term. It shunted aside the express will of the voters, who had approved the so-called Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative by overwhelming majorities in 1994 and 1996.

While most were content to ignore the ruling, a group of Republican lawmakers appealed, led by Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, effectively ending that portion of the litigation. (An appeal on related issues is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.)

What does this mean? The concept of constitutional government in Nevada is no more.

If the voters of a state cannot decide what should and should not be part of their state constitution, then the concept of democratic self-government has no meaning. The state's justices ostensibly thought they were resolving a standoff over taxes, but what they really did was pull at a thread that makes up the tapestry of the American system, stretching all the way back to the nation's founding.

Some people disagreed with the Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative, and now see the problems it can cause in efficiently administering state government. Similarly, many disagree with the constitutional ban on gay marriage, which was approved in 2000 and 2002.

But both got the support of a majority of voters, acting in the manner prescribed for amending the constitution. They are the law of the state, until the people in their wisdom say otherwise. Those of us who disagree have three options: Live with it, try to change it using another amendment, or move to another state.

But the state Supreme Court's undermining of the will of the voters is nothing short of a judicial revolution. There were no overriding moral concerns that mandated the ruling, like there would be if voters amended the constitution to legalize slavery or countermand the Bill of Rights. There wasn't even a judicial question to be answered. The justices did it because it was an easy, convenient way out of a mess, and in the process created a much bigger mess.

The road to hell is wide and well-lighted, with an unchallenging slope. By ruling as it did, the state Supreme Court has put Nevada in the carpool lane for Hades, with the cruise control set at 95 mph. And the U.S. Supreme Court, which we'd hoped would be the traffic cop that put an end to the recklessness, was sitting at the doughnut shop instead.

God help us.