Courts likely to strike down Republican lame-duck power grabs, experts say

Source: The Guardian

Courts likely to strike down Republican lame-duck power grabs, experts say

After Democrats won governor’s races in Wisconsin and Michigan, GOP-controlled legislatures have tried to limit executive power

Tom Perkins in Detroit, Michigan
Tue 11 Dec 2018 11.00 GMT

Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina suffered stinging losses in November, but the parties aren’t transferring power quietly, or at all in some cases. On the way out the door, “lame-duck” state legislatures are bringing in last-minute laws that will strip power from incoming Democrats, gut voter-approved ballot initiatives, or otherwise undermine the election results.

But some legal experts say the most alarming legislation the Republicans have passed is unconstitutional and unlikely to survive outraged Democrats’ legal challenges.

Among other issues, they contend many of the Republican laws blur the constitutionally mandated separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

“One of the fundamental principles of the American constitutional system is that the legislature is not the whole government,” said Richard Primus, a professor of law at the University of Michigan. “The point of the constitutional system is that no decision-making system gets to act for the whole political community – the powers are separated.”

Still, Michigan Republicans are pushing through a bill that would strip authority over campaign finance from the Democratic secretary of state-elect. (The state previously hit the bill’s Republican author with multiple campaign finance violations.) The Michigan and Wisconsin legislatures are also granting themselves power to intervene in lawsuits over their unpopular laws, weakening incoming Democratic attorneys general. And last week the Wisconsin legislature passed laws that take power from the incoming Democratic governor, Tony Evers.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/11/republican-lame-duck-power-grabs-unconstitutional-experts-say