Shower insists on strict interpretation of statutes, whatever that means

Sen. Mike Shower wants to change the judicial selection process so that more judges interpret Alaska law the way that Shower does, with an extreme right-wing slant.

He has wasted a good deal of the public’s time with Senate Bill No. 14, which is unlikely to pass the Legislature because most lawmakers have more sense than Shower and the rest of the Fringe Caucus.

The latest affront from Shower, Sens. Lora Reinbold and Shelley Hughes is the bogus claim that it would cost nothing to implement his ideas.

But that’s not what I want to write about today.

Shower’s bill says the Alaska Judicial Council may only submit a name for the district or appeals courts after determining that the “judicial candidate understands and is committed to strict constitutional interpretation of statutes and regulations and adhering to legislative intent.”

Shower does not make the same demand on a candidate that the governor might put forward to the Legislature, however, making it just fine for a judge committed to a lenient interpretation.

That inconsistency aside, we need a Shower scale to deal with strictness.

What happens when a judge who believes in the strict interpretation of the law encounters a colleague who believes in a stricter interpretation?

Or a very, very, very strict interpretation? What about a super-strict interpreter?

On the Shower scale, the edge has to go to the judge with the most extreme views on strictness.

The bill should demand that every judge be “committed to the strictest constitutional interpretation.”

This won’t solve those conflicts when a strict judge is directly contradicted by an equally strict judge with an opposing interpretation of the same language.

Shower could abandon his scale altogether and simply demand that every judge be committed to an accurate interpretation of the law.

There must be only one way to interpret a statute or regulation—the strictest way—so let’s just put language in state law mandating accuracy. Strictly speaking, that shouldn’t be hard, right?

Shower also demands strict adherence to “legislative intent.” No one knows exactly what legislative intent means—it is more cumulus cloud than concrete—but this is the Shower scale of interpretation we are talking about. Legislative intent is what’s needed when lawmakers enact poorly written laws that are the product of fuzzy thinking, no thinking or buzzwords.

Shower’s legislative intent is that any judge who follows his thinking will be doing the right thing. It’s strictly guesswork.

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