Posted on 08/27/2007 4:42:38 AM PDT by radar101
PHOENIX - A federal judge planned to consider a request that he find top Republican legislative leaders in contempt of court and impose hefty fines for failing to satisfy a court order to increase funding for programs for students learning English.
U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins scheduled the hearing Monday in Tucson on the request by an attorney representing parents and children who are plaintiffs in a 1992 class-action lawsuit against the state.
Plaintiffs' attorney Tim Hogan requested the sanctions measures on July 6 on grounds that the legislative leaders aren't complying with a court order for further legislative action on the funding issue.
House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, and Senate President Tim Bee, R-Tucson, contend that they're not all-powerful and should not be found in contempt of court.
At issue are several rulings in which Collins and another judge found the state has failed to provide adequate funding for English Language Learning programs, violating a federal civil rights law requiring equal opportunities in education.
Hogan asked Collins to impose daily fines starting at $500,000 and rising gradually to $2 million as long as the state is in noncompliance. Collins imposed similar fines against the state in 2006 and they eventually totaled $21 million before being erased by an appellate court.
After a new review ordered by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Collins on March 22 ruled the state still wasn't in compliance despite changes in federal and state education funding systems since 1992, including a 2006 state law intended to revamp the state's ELL programs and their funding.
Collins ordered further action by the Legislature by the end of the 2007 regular session, but lawmakers took no further action.
In their lawyer's response to Hogan's request for sanctions, Weiers and Bee said Collins' March 22 order for further action was directed at state government as a whole, not the legislative leaders as individuals, even though they formally intervened in the case.
The leaders' response said it is premature to consider Hogan's contempt request, even if it is redirected to the state instead of the individual lawmakers.
The leaders are already appealing Collins' March 22 ruling to the 9th Circuit, but it isn't known when the appellate court will consider the appeal.
What part of the Arizona’s State Constitution, or the US Constitution gives the Judicial branch of government the jurisdiction or authority to determine funding for education?
He made the ruling and everyone simply went along with it. Presto, no messy constitutional conventions or super-majority votes or bothersome court hearings on the language of an ammendment. One day no such constraints, the next they are in full force.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
That your 'honor' is the Tenth Amendment.
And here's a hint, nowhere in the Constitution is Education mentioned. Local school funding is none of your bidness. Even if Congress passed some unconstitutional law that says otherwise
(they're very good at that and have had a LOT of practice over the last 50 years).
Raner Christercunean Collins, District of Arizona
Judge Raner Collins, of Tucson, Arizona, received his undergraduate degree from Arkansas Polytechnic College in 1973, and his J.D. degree from the University of Arizona College of Law in 1975. Judge Collins served as a law clerk from 1975 to 1976, and trial attorney from 1975 to 1981, for the Pima County Attorney's Office. He was a City Magistrate for the City of Tucson from 1981 to 1983, a County Attorney with the Pima County Attorney's Office from 1983 to 1985, and a Pima County Superior Court Judge Pro Tempore from 1985 to 1988. Since 1988, Judge Collins has served as a Superior Court Judge for Pima County.
Bill Clinton nominated May 11, 1998 Raner C. Collins to serve as a United States District Court Judge for the District of Arizona.
(it's like Willard gave Herpes to all branches of the gubmint)
When did we become a dictatoship of unelected black-robed tyrants?
ping
Things are definitely “going down” (and I am not referring here to Senator Craig).
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