TKJunkMail
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join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
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2 edits |  Guess what: courts rule and not votes
Voters don't get to overrule the constitution and other duly passed laws just because they vote for it. In Louisiana back in the 60s they voted to keep segregation and that vote was overturned. In the US, for good or ill(and I agree often for ill), the last word is in the courts. The letter writer invokes democracy, but the US is a republic and not a democracy and voters don't always get what they want. See California and many other states where passed voter propositions are frequently overturned by the courts.
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Fatal Vector
join:2005-11-26
| The trouble
With your statements is that there is a difference between a vote of the people that allows something that is unconstitutional, or, against federal law and a vote for something that is not and is clearly lawfull.
Voters in many states DO get to overturn "duly passed laws" and create them. It's called a ballot initiative. What bellsouth is doing is simply the standard tactic to try and obstruct/overturn such initiatives in court. It rarely works because even though there may be initial success in obstructing the vote of the people, the fact is that such ballot initiatives are written into stste constitutions and trump the courts and state legislature as long as they are legal, RE: do not violate Federal laws, or, the federal/state constitution. Inevitably, such cases go to the state supreme court where they are quashed because the court knows they really have no other choice since they themselves cannot violate the state constitution.
It is exactly because the US as a whole (which is made up of 50 individual republics) is a republic also that such things as the ballot initiative exist. It is another check and ballance. |
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ominae
join:2003-05-11
Columbus, OH
| reply to Fatal Vector
Re: The trouble
it may be one of your "checks and balances", but i highly doubt that bellsouth had anything so noble in mind. it appears to me that free market is playing out in lafayette (i.e. supply and demand). problem: residents of lafayette wanted better internet service, bellsouth (and others) were unwilling to provide it. solution: build it yourself.
if bellsouth and cox are the primary isp's in the area and want to keep the citizen's of lafayette as paying customers then why don't they simply offer the services their customers want? my guess is they don't want to spend the capital needed to upgrade their existing networks. it doesn't make much sense from bellsouth's point of view to spend money building a new network if you can continue making a profit from on that's already in place (even if it's not filling your customers demands for better service).
it's simple: build it or get out of the way so somebody else can. |
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