All in the family

I just read this column tonight, a week and a half after it was published,but I wanted to post it anyway. It is a strong argument that the Kentucky Senate should have obeyed the court determination that Virginia Woodward should be the lawfully elected senator from the 37th District, as Senate President David Williams voluntarily intervened in that lawsuit, made his separation of powers argument, and lost. On that basis, it takes a position slightly different from the one I made here. Granted, I did not have as much information about the situation when I spouted off, and the analysis in the article may be more sound than mine.

The whole situation reminds me of the reactions of two different American presidents -- one annually honored by Democrats, the other by Republicans -- to Supreme Court decisions that they disagreed with. When the Supreme Court ruled that onlyclusive jurisdiction over the federal government, and not the states, had exclusive jurisdiction over tribal lands, Jackson is reported to have said, "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it." (Scroll down to "Native American Removal.")

And Abraham Lincoln, when faced with a decision hostile to his suspension of habeas corpus during wartime, ignored the Court's opinion, later explaining to the Congress, "[T]he whole of the laws which I was sworn to [execute] were being resisted...in nearly one-third of the states. Must I have allowed them to finally fail of execution?... Are all the laws but one [the right to habeas corpus] to go unexecuted, and the government itself...go to pieces, lest that one be violated?[T]he whole of the laws which I was sworn to [execute] were being resisted...in nearly one-third of the states. Must I have allowed them to finally fail of execution?... Are all the laws but one [the right to habeas corpus] to go unexecuted, and the government itself...go to pieces, lest that one be violated?" (Scroll down to "Suspending Habeas Corpus.")