"Abbott XXI" and the State Constitutional End Game
Scott Bauries on Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 12:14PM The New Jersey Supreme Court has just issued what is, under my best count, its twenty-first opinion in the ongoing school finance litigation, Abbott v. Burke. The total opinion (including the majority and separate opinions) is 215 pages, so an analysis will be forthcoming, but not today.
Essentially, though, this is a remedial opinion reaffirming that the court meant what it said in its last remedial opinion about the levels of funding required in the target districts, meaning that the state legislature's recent deep cuts to education spending are violative of the state constitution. The opinion ends with the court ordering the appropriation of an additional $500 million to the "Abbott districts" (the property-poor districts at the center of the suit in its current posture).
I think this opinion is likely to hasten the constitutional confrontation that has been inevitable in New Jersey since the beginning of this 20-year saga. The court here is nearing a constitutional "end game," where the elected legislators know that they will lose their jobs if they raise taxes to preserve school funding, but the court is basically trapped into demanding exactly that action based on its prior rulings. If neither side blinks, then what? Jailing individual legislators for contempt of court if they vote the wrong way?
