Sen. Boots has introduced SJR 2, a proposed amendment to the Indiana constitution which would address a persistent source of conflict between courts and fiscal bodies: the judicial mandate of funds.
Specifically, it prohibits the Indiana Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, and any other court created by the Indiana General Assembly from issuing “a mandate, an order, or another writ requiring the State or a political subdivision of the State to expend money for the operation of any court of the State.”
I’ve written on the subject of mandates many times before, including here. The basic rub is that county judges look, in an administrative and funding sense, like county department heads. But, they’re really state officials with authority to order county councils to fund their operation — they also have wide discretion to determine whether or not the council appropriations are sufficient. Non-judicial county department heads do not have any such authority. The judicial discretion is not unlimited, but mandates are reviewed by another part of the judiciary — so there is at least the appearance of an unlevel playing field. (Imagine if county council challenges to mandates was reviewed by the Association of Indiana Counties.)
That said, I’m always quick to add, the cases I’ve seen do not feature judges using their mandate powers in an abusive fashion; but the powers have given them an advantage over other county functions in terms of allocation of resources.
Having served on a county council when a threat of a mandate “forced” the council to make decisions contrary to their wishes—I do believe it is an authority without much comparable situation in government.
I have always questioned the legality of judicial mandates that a legislative branch spend money. Seems like a violation of separation of powers. Where do you draw the line between what they mandate and don’t mandate?
Maybe it isn’t fair to equate the US and Indiana Constitution, but it confuses me that there are multiple attempts to amend the Indiana Constitution *each* year while there have be far fewer with the US Constitution.
Is my respect for the idea of the Constitution being a place for “foundational” laws misguided? Seems like many of the Indiana amendments are more procedural, or worse yet, “let’s set this in stone so it’s harder to change when someone else gets power”.
Then again, I’m not a lawyer, so I probably just don’t understand the finer points of the law.
Paula,
Actually there are proposals to amend both constitutions filed every year. You just don’t hear as much about the federal ones because the process is much more difficult than it is at the state level.
Still there are a couple reasons why state constitutional amendments are much more prominent. First, the process for amendment is much easier in the states than with the U.S. Constitution. Second, state constitutions are much longer than the U.S. Constitutions and deal with interest group type matters – things like mental health hospitals, corporations, alcoholic beverages, schools, etc…the types of detailed matters you won’t find in the federal constitution.