Republican lawmakers, still stung by the Florida Supreme Court’s rebuke of three constitutional amendments, continued on Wednesday a long running accusation that the court crafts state policy, usurping the Legislature’s policymaking role.
“The folks from home call it legislating from the bench,” said Rep. Larry Metz (R-Yalaha).
The lawmakers’ target during a House Civil Justice Subcommittee meeting was the court’s ability to make rules governing practice and procedure throughout the state’s judicial system.
The court, some lawmakers said, was overstepping its authority by sometimes making policy through those rules, rather than focusing on simple judicial procedure.
Among the rules cited was the right to a speedy trial. The court determined that if a case is not heard 175 days after a felony arrest, it violates the defendant’s right to a speedy trial and he or she should be let go.
Lawmakers argue that amount of time, what constitutes speedy, is something that should be decided by legislators through statute, not by the courts in a rule.
Lawmakers can only change a court rule by a two-thirds vote, meaning for legislators to change what the courts decided would require 80 votes in the House and 27 in the Senate.
Rep. Eric Eisnaugle (R-Orlando), who chairs the committee, attempted to change the rules governing speedy trials last spring, but fell short of the 80 votes.
The Florida Supreme Court and the Republican-controlled state government have long been at odds.
In 2006, the court knocked down the country’s largest school voucher program, the cornerstone of then Gov. Jeb Bush’s education policy.
And this summer, the court also struck three proposed constitutional amendments from the November ballot that had been championed by the Republican Legislature, including House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos.
And those are just a couple of examples. Nearly every year for more than a decade lawmakers have complained about “activist courts” seeking to make law.