Saturday, August 22, 2009

VanHollen's Right, As Usual

He cannot defend the indefensible.

Defending the [domestic partner] law would require him to ignore the voters' approval of the marriage amendment in 2006 because he believes the budget provision recognizes a legal status that is substantially similar to the legal status of marriage, Van Hollen said in a statement.

"My duty to is to the people of the state of Wisconsin and the highest expression of their will - the constitution of the state of Wisconsin," Van Hollen said. "When the people have spoken by amending our constitution, I will abide by their command. When policy-makers have ignored their words, I will not."

Undies became bundled forthwith.

"The attorney general's job is to represent the state and defend state law when there is a good-faith defense to be made," Doyle said in a statement. "His representation should not be based on whether he likes the state law."

Really, Jimbo?

During his 12 years as attorney general, Doyle declined to represent then-Gov. Tommy Thompson in a handful of lawsuits the state ultimately lost.

You signed a law which was blatantly un-Constitutional, jackass.

Maybe you should hire a bar-admitted in-house counsel for advice next time.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Blatantly un-Constitutional, jackass."

So blatant, you don't even need to explain why, right?

Dad29 said...

Correct.

Anonymous said...

Incapable of explaining why, more like it.

Dad29 said...

I don't waste bandwidth explaining what's plain as the asshole behind "anonymous".

Disgruntled Car Salesman said...

ZING!

RAG said...

I'm not sure if this is high political drama, a dance competition or a lecture on legal ethics -- or all three.

The general rule of law is that statutes have the presumption of constitutionality. That doesn't mean they're all constitutional but they have the presumption of so being.

The Attorney General has the general duty to represent the state, including defending the constitutionality of statutes.

Of course, if the Attorney General reasonably believes that the statute isn't constitutional, he or she has the ethical responsibility to fall on the sword.

Of course, there are political overtones to all of this and, adding to the high drama, who would have thought that the Iowa Supreme Court would have sided with gay marriage?

May we live in interesting times.

(Oh yeah, just another way for Jimbo to sign the song of how the state is broke and then go out and needlessly spend $$$.)

Dad29 said...

Goes to show ya....

The Iowa Court and Rembert Weakland: educated beyond their intelligence.