HERE’S THE TEXT of the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that allows Torricelli to be replaced on the ballot. Here’s a link to the New York Times story, here’s one to the Washington Post’s report, and here’s one to the Philadelphia Inquirer story. Based on a quick read, I don’t have much to say about the opinion except that I don’t see why the “two party system” deserves such legal stature.

Eugene Volokh also has little to say in response to such a sketchy opinion. Solly Ezekiel rules out partisan bias.

UPDATE: Volokh has more now. Read it!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Orrin Judd says the New Jersey Democrats should have suffered for not picking Cory Booker.

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Mickey Kaus sums up the opinion this way:

I would add that the court doesn’t appear to have made any effort to discern a statutory scheme here. The operative rule seems to be: “We’re going to do what we think is right unless there’s an incredibly clear black-letter statute saying we can’t. And then we can always declare it unconstitutional.” Does the elected legislature have any role to play here at all? (It’s ironic that the court pays such attention to finding what it thinks is the most democratic way to pick a lawmaker, even as it brushes aside the actual work-product of those democratically-elected lawmakers, namely statutes.)

Well said. Tony Adragna adds this observation:

I don’t see how those interests couldn’t have been served by simply leaving Torricelli on the ballot notwithstanding that he’s a loser — that he’s a loser threatens not the two party system. limits not participation, the party had a candidate on the ballot — chosen through the primary process — and “most importantly” voters still had a choice on Election Day… hmmm… I think this ruling is bad law….

There’s more.

Tom Maguire is unhappy, and so is IMAO. On the other hand, Jonathan Adler, whose post on this yesterday at The Corner seems to have hit pretty close to the mark, emails that the decision isn’t out of character for New Jersey courts in election disputes: “There’s a bunch of New Jersey case law on stretching election law to ensure voter ‘choice’ on the ballot.” Yeah, but if they really cared about voter choice, they’d have a line for “none of the above.”

Here are the choices the voters would have had. And here’s what one of the “choices” had to say.