Judges, Perdue reach budget agreement

Perdue: You gotta cut the budget.

Judges: OK. But we want you to say please. And that we're cooler than you, because of these sweet black robes.

From a Georgia Supreme Court press release:

Atlanta, June 5, 2009 – Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears and Gov. Sonny Perdue have reached a compromise on his demand to reduce the judicial branch’s budget by 25 percent. The Governor has agreed to withdraw his demand, while the Chief Justice and the state’s judges have agreed to withhold 25 percent from their June budget allotment by deferring some current obligations and expenses until the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The understanding is that some of those expenses would then be requested during the Fiscal Year 2010 Amended Budget process.

Budget confrontations between the executive and judicial branch present interesting hypothetical arguments, but generally boil down to a need to just work together.

I've covered a couple of judge-mandated court orders requiring counties to build new courthouses, and you could argue whether the county could actually afford to do that. Those orders tend to languish for years.

A 1996 Houston County order demanded a new courthouse be completed by the summer of 1998. It opened in the fall of 2002.

Judges can file court orders. The executive branch directs law enforcement. The legislative branch handles appropriations. If one of these disagreements ever gets to the enforcement stage, who shows up with a gun to take someone to jail?