A member of the Iowa legislature, Jason Schultz, has introduced a bill:
A judicial officer shall not use judicial precedent, case law, penumbras, or international law as a basis for rulings. A judicial officer shall only use the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Iowa, and the Code of Iowa as the basis for any ruling issued by such judicial officer. The only source material that may be used for interpreting the Constitution of the United States by a judicial officer in this state shall be the Federalist papers and other writings of the founding fathers to describe the intent of the founding fathers, and if such source material is used, the full context of the source material must be used by the judicial officer.
This fails for both legal and common sense reasons. First of all, application of the Supremacy Clause prohibits states from interpreting the federal constitution in any way that contradicts the interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court or the applicable Circuit Court of Appeals. (The same goes for federal statutes, which Schultz's bill neglects to mention at all.) This bill implicitly makes an absolute claim of state sovereignty and denial of the authority of the U.S. government. It amounts to a declaration of secession.
Secondly, due process under both the Iowa and U.S. constitutions requires that precedent have legal weight, at least in criminal matters. If a state supreme court rules on the interpretation of a criminal law, then people in that state must be entitled to rely on that ruling in guiding their own behavior. Schultz's bill, which is nominally about making judicial decision-making less variable, actually would have the opposite effect: Every judge who considered a statute would be required to decide what that statute meant de novo. No one could ever be truly sure was legal and illegal.
Which brings us to the common sense objection: Who makes decisions like this? Who reinvents the wheel every time an issue arises? It's idiotic to not consider what other people thought about any complex problem in the past when you approach a similar question. It's essentially mandated stupidity.
I know it's nutpicking, but look at the size of that nut. It's pretty big.
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