So to return to the Nevada case, should the federal courts order the state legislature to comply with the 2/3 vote requirement for tax increases contained in the Nevada Constitution (because to ignore it is unconstitutional vote dilution, maybe even a breach of the Republican Guarantee Clause -- assuming, for present purposes, the merits of the claims), because in such a case the federal court is addressing those legislators as litigants, and it doesn't matter what the Nevada Supreme Court has said? If not, how is that different from my Alabama hypothetical, which assumed that the Alabama Supreme Court had held that it was permissible for Moore to install the monument?
John C. Eastman Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law Director, The Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence -----Original Message----- From: Kermit Roosevelt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2003 12:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Cooper Redux? (Re: Marshall & Upholding Federal Statutes) I'm not sure I understand this. Lower federal courts can't literally reverse state court rulings; that's the point of Rooker-Feldman. And in practice I know that at least some state supreme courts do not consider themselves bound by the rulings of "their" federal circuit, though they tend to defer. (There are Illinois supreme court decisions saying this about the Seventh Circuit; I don't know about the other states.) That surprised me a bit when I first encountered it, but it's federal *law* that binds state courts, not federal judicial opinions, so I think it makes sense that state courts aren't bound by lower federal court interpretations of federal law, in just the same way that federal courts aren't bound by lower state court interpretations of state law. Thus I would think you could in theory get situations in which a state supreme court disagreed with its circuit on a federal question and the two systems went their separate ways--the state courts affirming convictions, for instance, and the district courts ordering habeas relief. (AEDPA, of course, has restricted the availability of relief based on circuit law, so you won't see this in practice.) But in this circumstance I don't think that state officials could rely on state- court rulings to refuse to comply with federal court orders: they couldn't continue to hold the prisoners. So once you get to the dueling injunction stage, I think federal courts must prevail. And to return to the Alabama case, if a federal court orders Moore to remove the monument, I don't think it matters what the Alabama supreme court has said; the federal court is addressing him as a litigant and not reversing any state court decision. Quoting Mark Graber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > The framers, historical research demonstrates, for reasons of pure > spite, refused to provide precise answers to twenty-first century > constitutional questions when framing their eighteenth century > constitution. > > My best guess, emphasis on "guess" is as follows. > > A central purpose of the federal court system was to ensure that > federal law would be followed in the provinces (Martin Shapiro is good > on this > as a more general phenomenon). This proved quite controversial and > one > response, embodied in the Judiciary Act of 1789, was to limit the > federal question jurisdiction of federal courts. Still, my best > reading > of the constitution is that when Congress does give federal courts > jurisdiction over a federal question, and the lower federal court > reverses a state court ruling, the state court is bound by that > ruling > unless it is reversed by the Supreme Court. > > Mark A. Graber > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
