speaking of roll calls
Sep. 28th, 2006 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearboth Davis and Wolf (Northern VA's representatives) voted yes to the bill that would "protect" the government from establishment clause lawsuits, thus allowing the theocracy of the mad to proceed apace without anyone able to afford the court challenge.
Here's the catch-22 about the madness here: you can't sue to call this potential law unconstitutional until it affects you, and you can't have it affect you until you sue for an establishment clause breach and win, and then you have to be able to pony up the money to your legal firm (since pro bono won't exist because the good-guy lawyers do that on the grounds of winning some of it back and the law would prevent them from ever collecting). and THEN you can sue again (if you have any money left) to have the law itself declared unconstitutional. In short - nobody can afford to do that.
it is one hell of a potential legal loophole, all to allow this nation to promote one particularly insidious brand of christianity at the expense of every other religion or reasonable person out there.
Yes, I'm pissed.
No individual clause of the constution should be any more or less important than any other, and the contempt for the law document that gives them their power just completely disgusts me.
Your bill of rights has just taken one hell of a hit from these madmen. Truly, it is time to kick them out and replace them with people who respect the real source of their power - the consent of the people, not the God on high.
Here's the catch-22 about the madness here: you can't sue to call this potential law unconstitutional until it affects you, and you can't have it affect you until you sue for an establishment clause breach and win, and then you have to be able to pony up the money to your legal firm (since pro bono won't exist because the good-guy lawyers do that on the grounds of winning some of it back and the law would prevent them from ever collecting). and THEN you can sue again (if you have any money left) to have the law itself declared unconstitutional. In short - nobody can afford to do that.
it is one hell of a potential legal loophole, all to allow this nation to promote one particularly insidious brand of christianity at the expense of every other religion or reasonable person out there.
Yes, I'm pissed.
No individual clause of the constution should be any more or less important than any other, and the contempt for the law document that gives them their power just completely disgusts me.
Your bill of rights has just taken one hell of a hit from these madmen. Truly, it is time to kick them out and replace them with people who respect the real source of their power - the consent of the people, not the God on high.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 04:51 pm (UTC)the compensation law (that's having establishment suits be an exception in this bill) is meant as a deterent to the government not passing blatantly unconstitutional laws and as an encouragement for the people to assert their rights when the government violates them.
the compensation is not an "award". when a lawsuit is filed, such as Dover's ID policy in Kitzmiller, the suit is normally for merely an injunction plus standard financial fee: $1.00. nobody asks the government for money when they say that a school system has refused an islamic group from renting school property (while still allowing a christian group to do so). nobody asks for money from the government when a school system promotes public school prayer in its morning announcements. nobody asks for money from the government when a jackass judge puts up a huge concrete representation of the ten commandments (7 of which would themselves be unconstitutional), at taxpayer expense, in the middle of a court building.
they ask that the government stop doing the blatantly unconstitional act and treat all religions equally and fairly.
as for the compensation - the lawyers in Kitzmiller cost and/or spent about 2.5 million dollars. the settlement is only giving them 1 million back. they are eating 1.5 million because the government blatantly violated establishment law and precedent. challenging the constitutionality of the government's actions is neither cheap nor profitable.
it merely looks good on a resume when we win.
you can't cap legal fees - every document you present to a court costs money. every minute spent in the courtroom costs money. every witness you bring in costs money.
it all adds up very quickly, and there's no way to cap it and keep the trial fair without the taxpayers picking up the rest of the slack (for suits they may not believe in). and in a civil suit (unlike a criminal one), you pay for every dime if you're the plaintiff.