XPost: alt.vietnam.veterans, alt.med.veterinary, seattle.politics
XPost: stl.general

In article <XnsAC5217B5F1DAWC20@0.0.0.1>
Ken More <users@google.com> wrote:

John Adams, our second president, once described a republic as “a
government of laws, and not of men.” By this, he meant that we live by the rule of law, even those of us who are entrusted with public office for a time. The notion that no one is above the law remains true over 200 years later.

Checks and balances secure the rule of law. They prevent too much power
from becoming concentrated in the hands of too few — or one. In our
republic, we have divided the powers of government into three departments: legislative, executive, and judicial. No person exercising the powers of
one department shall exercise powers belonging to the other two. This separation of powers, obvious if implicit in our federal constitution, is explicit in Article III, Section 2 of our state constitution.

The legislative power is the power to make laws. It is vested in our Legislature. Citing the intent to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer spent the last seven months exercising legislative power through her executive orders. Those orders confined us to our homes unless
we had a government-approved reason to be out.

Those orders also closed schools, businesses, and every other facet of
civic life, unless Whitmer decided it was “critical.” Even since
“allowing” parts of the economy to reopen, she has continued to
micromanage daily life. And, for the last five months, she has been doing
all of this over the objection of the Legislature — the people we elected
to make the laws we live by.

In 1803, the first chief justice of the United States penned words that
every lawyer knows by heart: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” And that includes telling legislatures and governors when they’ve overstepped their legal authority.
A respected, independent judiciary is what keeps us from slipping into a dictatorship or mob rule.

Without judges to protect our rights and to keep our leaders within the bounds of the law, our constitution is just a collection of words on a
page. As the late Justice Antonin Scalia once reminded the U.S. Senate,
every banana republic has had a bill of rights.

Despite what some polls may say, many of our fellow citizens believe that Whitmer’s orders have radically exceeded executive authority, however honorable her intentions may be. We have been privileged to represent
several of them in court. Among them are men and women who, after years of working tirelessly to build their businesses, suffered losses with the
stroke of the governor’s pen — well, actually, over 180 stokes of the pen
so far. They had every right to ask the courts to decide if she has the
power to do that. And the courts had a duty to answer that question.

And answer it they did. At the beginning of October, the Michigan Supreme Court struck down Whitmer’s orders by striking down the Emergency Powers
of the Governor Act of 1945 as an unconstitutional delegation of
legislative power to the executive branch. The Court’s analysis tracks
with the core arguments we have been making in the federal courts in Sotheby’s v. Whitmer, Mitchell v. Whitmer, and Emagine Theatres v.
Whitmer, and in an amicus brief we filed in support of the Legislature’s challenge to Whitmer’s executive orders.

e are proud to have been on the front line defending the republic from the mortal danger of executive overreach. And, as a people, we are fortunate
that the Michigan Supreme Court has restored the people’s branch of government to its proper role in deciding how we, as a community, will respond to the virus.

In response to the Court’s ruling, the governor incorrectly stated that
the decision is not effective for another 21 days: Under Michigan Court
Rule 7.315(C)(4), “unless otherwise ordered by the Court, an order or judgment is effective when it is issued…” Not 21 days later. Immediately. Her emergency powers are over, and either the Court or the attorney
general should publicly clarify that Whitmer’s executive orders no longer have any force of law.

Whitmer also said that “many of the responsive measures I have put in
place to control the spread of the virus will continue under alternative sources of authority that were not at issue in today’s ruling.” If the governor intends to keep issuing orders, we intend to keep defending constitutional norms and our liberties on to the end, however long and
hard that road may be.

Our freedoms were purchased at too great a price by too many good men and women for us to flag in the fight. We owe it to our clients, ourselves,
and our posterity to battle on. And we shall never tire to do so.

Joseph E. Richotte is a shareholder with Butzel Long. He dedicates his practice to vigorously defending against criminal and civil enforcement actions that threaten business interests and personal liberty. Daniel J. McCarthy is a shareholder with Butzel Long. He concentrates his practice
in appellate and commercial litigation for both state and federal courts.

<https://www.detroitnews.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.detroitn ews.com%2Fstory%2Fopinion%2F2020%2F10%2F09%2Fopinion-gov-whitmers- emergency-powers-ended-immediately-ruling%2F5943050002%2F>

Michigan pussies gave this bitch the sympathy vote and look what
it got them.
 

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