Plan to overhaul Florida Supreme Court clears a Republican committee

[seafan]

Source: St. Petersburg Times

TALLAHASSEE — House Speaker Dean Cannon's bold plan to overhaul the Florida Supreme Court gathered steam Thursday, as a Republican-controlled House committee endorsed the proposed changes and Democrats opposed them, as did the Florida Bar and some judges.

Cannon wants to break the seven-member Supreme Court into two separate five-member tribunals, one to handle only civil cases and the other to hear only criminal cases, similar to systems in Texas and Oklahoma. That would give Gov. Rick Scott three appointments to the state's highest court.

Cannon's plan would require the three most senior justices — Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince — to join the criminal appeals court.

The speaker, a Winter Park lawyer, also wants to make public investigative files of judges that are now secret and require appellate court judges to get at least 60 percent of the vote, not a mere majority, to stay in office. Cannon has faulted the court's "unelected justices" for tossing three legislative proposals off the 2010 ballot.

Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/plan-to-overhaul-florida-supreme-court-clears-a-committee/1158000

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Take a good look at one of the faces of radical conservatism controlling the state of Florida.


Republican House Speaker Dean Cannon (St. Petersburg Times)



So, what is the REAL reason Dean Cannon wants to break up the Florida Supreme Court?


Randy Schultz at the Palm Beach Post cuts it out with a laser:

There is no credible case for two state supreme courts

March 11, 2011

.....

The real driving force behind this amendment is rage at the Florida Supreme Court for killing three of the Legislature's proposed 2010 constitutional amendments. Like this one, those amendments were bogus, and the court knocked them off the ballot only after they had been challenged. There was no "judicial activism."

This plan is court-packing, FDR-style, from self-styled conservatives. Gov. Scott would get to appoint three new justices. Who would serve on which court? Rep. Cannon's office said "that is one of the details that would be discussed during the committee process or in the context of an implementing bill."

Those who run the executive and legislative branches in Tallahassee want a subservient judicial branch. And that's the fact.

More reaction from around the state:

Bad idea to split up high court


Now not time to change court



And where does Dean Cannon want to house his fantasy of a newly divided Supreme Court?


Proposed bill would move expanded Fla. Supreme Court to new 1st DCA building



In Marco Rubio's Taj Mahal.

[Doremus]

1. I think we need to start calling them what they are.

Participants in a coup d'etat, a.k.a. traitors.

Their treasonous behavior exceeds the label "radical conservative," imo.

[Mister Ed]

2. +1

These are not merely people whose policies differ from ours. These are traitors, bent on destroying American Democracy because it sorta gets in their way.

[slay]

3. +1

Absofuckinglutely! Them and their enablers.

[defendandprotect]

8. +1

[struggle4progress]

4. Must be plannin to try to steal another election

[provis99]

5. Didn't Republicans scream when FDR tried court-packing?

What massive, evil hypocrites they are.

[Judi Lynn]

6. What a shame Jeb Bush was able to place murderous dictator Fulgencio Batista's grandson on it

while he was a Florida governor.

Raoul Cantero, raised in Spain, where his bloody, death-squad loving grandpops lived in exile after the revolution is someone a lot of people would NOT want in their Supreme Court.

[ngant17]

7. I thought Batista retired in Ormond Beach, FL

after robbing the Cuban Treasury of gold coins and over $700 million dollars of valuables when fleeing the Revolution. That's a town north of Daytona Beach.

In any case, I'm sure his children and grandchildren inherited a lot of that stolen wealth. They never returned it to Cuba, that's for sure.

[Snoutport]

9. terrifying

this is just crazy!