TeamGOP’s reports: Ophelia Ford wins in Memphis.
I’m not so sure I would classify the effect of this ruling as being as pro-Ford as they do, based on what little I know from the Tennessean and Commerical Appeal articles. There seems to be some pretty healthy spin between the two versions, and it’s interesting that the two headlines differ so drastically.
I’d like to hear from members of the Senate as to how they interpret the ruling before getting too far ahead of myself, but here’s my initial reaction:
In a generic way, what the judge said makes sense: if the Senate treats one group of voters differently than another group, that is improper. The Senate cannot disenfranchise one district on a whim, or hold one district’s vote to a higher standard than others.
On the other hand, I don’t believe a judge ought to be able to tell a Senator how he must vote and on what basis he must determine his decisions, any more than the Senate should be able to force a judge to devise standards, in advance, which would specify how she will rule in any particular case coming before her in the future — if it were possible to draft cut-and-dry standards for every possible situation which may arise in the judiciary, there would be no need for judges.
Her ruling assumes that the Senate needed to have already anticipated what might happen in the event that a Senator would be caught in a FBI bribery sting, that dead people would vote in the resulting special election to replace him, that an election worker would send another person to work in her place, that the election official would be on the former Senator’s payroll and have felony convictions on his record, that people would register to vote in the election using the address of a vacant lot, and that voters would even come close to electing the disgraced Senator’s sister, of all people.
On second thought, maybe the Senate should have anticipated such things; this is Memphis we’re talking about, right?
Ruling helps Ford: TeamGOP, Adam Groves
Ruling hurts Ford: Nathan Moore, Sen. Ron Ramsey
Ruling is a mixed bag: Jackson Baker, Fore Left
See also: Bob Krumm, Smart City Memphis, Michael Silence
UPDATE: I love this case, if only because Ophelia Ford is listed as both a plaintiff and a defendant, while “[t]he Court holds that this Court does not have jurisdiction to decide an election dispute.” With Ford party to both sides, the Court offers the plantiff half “partial relief” and the defendant half a partial victory, even though it really doesn’t have the juristiction to do either. Heh!
