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In news that is sure to slow the momentum of the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, the Post has a front page story this morning about how lawyers at the Department of Justice believe that the measure is unconstitutional. An unpublished opinion from the department's Office of Legal Counsel was apparently rejected by Attorney General Eric Holder, who instead asked the solicitor general's office to weigh whether the government could defend the legislation if it was challenged in court. It could, states the article.
Questions about the constitutionality of the legislation have been raised since it was first conceived by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), though legal opinions have so far defied ideological lines. Conservative legal scholars such as Kenneth Starr and Viet Dinh have vouched for the legislation, while the more liberal George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has regularly inveighed against it.
Today's news will likely give opponents of the legislation additional ammunition, both on the question of constitutionality and in criticizing Holder's decision to seek opinions on the legislation outside of the Department of Justice. Republicans can portray Holder's move as political, the last thing an already reeling Department of Justice needs after the numerous controversies that came out of it during the latter years of the Bush administration.
Ultimately, it will have to be the courts that decide, provided the legislation makes it through the House (and even that is in question at this point). The legal community is fairly split on the constitutionality of the measure, but that debate shouldn't be reason to keep it from passing congressional muster, should it?
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I don't see why everyone's so dead set against retrocession. As far as driving skills, DC folks suck just as bad as Maryland drivers anyway. Apart from getting representatives and sending tax dollars to Annapolis instead of that money pit downtown, how would retrocession change everyone's day-to-day lives? You'd still get up, go to work, and pay too much for everything, just like you do now. It's just that you don't have a pointless State of New Columbia bureaucracy layered on top of the already craptacular "service" you're getting now. So you don't get a State flag and your very own star on the Stars and Stripes. You also don't get Senator Marion Barry and Governor Fenty. That has to count for something.
This coming from the guy who likely drives a minivan (judging from the wife and 2.5 kids). And based upon your preferred choice of shirts, I'm guessing it's an avocado green 1987 Ford Aerostar with one hubcap and a DIY tint job. Keep your 45 MPH self in the right hand lane, Virginia!
Look, I'm just reiterating what's been said elsewhere: Maryland drivers are idiots, Virgina drivers are maniacs, DC drivers are morons.
But you nailed me on the car. You only missed the "Cuidado! Jesus es mas Grande!" bumpersticker, the Bumpernuts®, and the fact it's 51% Bondo colored.
Yeah, but his wife is hot.
Thanks RJ, you made my day!
@monkeyrotica: Bumpernuts! HAHAHAHA! You wish.
Actually, there are good reasons for Congress not to pass laws its members know, or merely suspect, are unconstitutional.
http://www.slate.com/id/2151048/
Isn't this the kind of crap people like Dahlia Lithwick used to go ape over whenever Bush did it?
Yes, indeed. Of course, she's a pathetic, partisan hack, so she'll never whine about this. But that doesn't make her argument is any less valid when her side does it.
One of these things is not like the other.
I think there's a difference between political appointees pressuring/forcing career lawyers to change their advice (which is my impression of what happened under Bush) and simply choosing not to follow the advice provided. There are strong arguments on both sides of this question; it's not unreasonable for Holder to have decided that he thought OLC came down on the wrong side of a question that has divided the finest legal minds in the country.
Very poor move by Holder. He criticized Fredo Gonzalez when the Bush DOJ pulled similar stunts.
Notice that the question that OLC was asked was the constitutionality of the DC voting rights bill. They said they thought it to be unconstitutional.
Holder than asked the Solicitor General's Office whether they could defend the act in court. They said yes.
Those are very different questions. Of course the Solicitor can defend it in court; that's their job! But OLC - the office in the DOJ tasked with determining what's legal and what's not - said the bill was unconstitutional.
I think Holder's action, which the Post describes as being unusual and similar to what the Bushies did, could very well have given skeptical Dems the additional justification they needed to back away from the bill.
Can we now just move to no federal taxation for DC residents? That would put us in the same position as all other non-state US citizens. And it would be perfectly constitutional.
The only constitutional arguments I've read are either statehood, a constitutional amendment for DC voting rights, or retrocession. Of those three, the least painful is retrocession. And I don't really give a fat rat's fart whether Maryland wants DC or not. There's a couple hundred GitMo detainees that have to go somewhere, and I don't see any states stepping up to the plate on that one. So the Feds have to come in and shove those guys down someone's throat. Same deal here: pay off those chimps in Annapolis with a couple of bananas, and make them add DC to their tax roster as another "county." But give it a stupid name. Too bad Wicomico and Cecil are already taken. I'd go with something classy, like Thuggington or Dorkchester or Wonkomico or Minas Morgul or Gotham $h!tty or New Goatse-on-Potomac.
If you gave a banana to anyone in Annapolis, they wouldn't know what to do with it. In fact, they'd probably be insulted. You need sea insects or nautical instruments to curry favor with those people.
Alright, so we throw live crabs and sextants at their heads. Now, where's this curry?
I certainly don't oppose the legislation, but no one should be shocked and surprised at this revelation.
is there anywhere to get one of those sweet activist posters?
dynamiteprintworks.com
With those chiclets, the District should be playing hockey.
Or, here's another way of reading this situation: two teams of lawyers, getting the same information, come to completely different conclusions. Imagine that! I mean, it's not like that has happened since this bill was introduced...oh, wait, it has!
@Blackcloud: In this case, all of the possible situations are unconstitutional or nonviable. Retrocession violates the principle of popular sovereignty for both MD and DC; statehood will never make it through an unpressured Congress because of partisan bickering; and the present situation violates principles of democratic representation of the citizens of DC. The courts HAVE to clean this up; no other body can do it.
But it wasn't the same information.
One group was asked if the bill was constitutional. They said no.
Another group was asked if they could defend the bill in court. They said yes. That's two very different questions.
Holder could have asked Jacky Chiles whether he could defend the law in court and he would have said unequivocally, absolutely, outstandingly, and astoundingly yes he could. And that would basically have the same legal importance as the Solicitor General's office saying they too could defend the law in court, especially since the presumption is that any law enacted by Congress is constitutional.
criticizing Holder's decision to seek opinions on the legislation outside of the Department of Justice
Um, the OLC and the Solicitor General are both within the Department of Justice, not outside of it.
If retrocession, then MD gets first crack at all income/profits earned in DC? Could end up a win for MD and a lose for VA.
Considering PG County's indigent population and imploding real estate market, it would probably be a zero-sum game.
perhaps a break even for MD, but a sure lose for VA, since presumably the tax $ would shift from McLean and Great Falls to the Northern suburbs of PG and Baltimore.
Toss in dilution/abolition of existing MD/DC/VA political power structures and it's at least as unlikely as limited home rule.
All of Northern Virginia's tax dollars go to the great un-washed south, so it is OK.
:) Yeah, I hear you. I gotta figure (the 'burb portion of) the state would at least possibly enjoy their $$$ at least being spent in the same MSA.
I think the bill is crap anyway. The way I understand it, some yahoo state would another Rep for no dang good reason, DC still wouldn't be in the Senate and local decisions could still be overidden/denied at the whim of Congress (see needle exchange/medical marijuana). So it's crap. It's not even second rate crap. It's 8th-rate crap. DC deserves better.
Listen folks, Holder is a busy man. It is either "hands off" marijuana smokers or DC statehood. Think of the children!
What the Fuck is with that picture/poster? A half-crazed DC with bad teeth, and furled brow trying to bite Northern Virginia? I don't think so. Come back in a few years after your attitude has improved and we can discuss statehood.
It was either that or the goatse with bad teeth. What do you want to look at?
Neither?
If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.
You can choose from goatses with teeth or posters designed by the mentally ill.
I will choose the path that's clear, I will choose free will.
The Statehood Greens held a poster design contest. Unfortunately, only the Freemasons and West Virginia College of Dental Hygiene submitted entries. Rather than give two prizes, the Statehood Greens combined the entries and made them split second place.
OK, never mind.
I sincerely hope that none of you have a job where your visual literacy is put to any kind of test. that's a great graphic.
be honest, do you have anything pottery barn in your house? have you ever found yourself admiring a thomas kinkade (or is van gogh, like, your favorite artist)? do you own uggs or one of those handbags with logos all over them?
I agree that if this was a republican administration the reaction would have been fierce. You have a political appointee circumventing the advice of career government lawyers because he didn't like the outcome. If you were afraid of the answer, don't ask the question in the first place. If the question has to be asked, make sure you are prepared to stand by the decision. This reeks of a politically-driven agenda, regardless of Holder's true motivation.