September 14, 2006
Laws and Lawyers
By
Jack D. McNamara
The state of the
Republic awaits the solemn consideration of the lawyers amongst us —
Immigration
legislation dead — National Republican leaders appear to be
in a state of confusion. Last week the Speaker of the House,
Representative Dennis Hastert, vowed the House would use the few days
left in the legislative session to pass “border security” bills. “Our
borders are a sieve, we’re at war, and we certainly need to act like
we’re at war,” he told the Dallas
Morning News on September 7.
One day later, the retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn)
acknowledged that the Congress will not pass a comprehensive
immigration bill this session.
Instead the Republicans — who control both houses of Congress, the
Presidency, and the state of Texas will proclaim their accomplishments
— 375 miles of new border fences built and funded.
The next likely Senate Majority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky, said the Senate Budget Committee has in the last two years
approved 3,736 new Border Patrol agents, 9,150 new detention beds and
370 miles of fencing. The Democrats fired back that the Immigration and
Naturalization Service reduced work site enforcement 95% between 1999
and 2003. Employers prosecuted for hiring illegals went from 182 in
1999 to four in 2003.
Texas Governor Rick Perry last week launched a television campaign ad
touting his actions on border security … “he’s fighting for $100
million dollars for border security,… If Washington won’t protect our
border, Texas will.”
One year ago Governor
Perry denied there was any border emergency at the same time the
governors of Arizona and New Mexico (both Democrats) declared their
states’ emergencies.
Neither Hastert, Frist nor Perry is a lawyer. But their job is making
laws.
Voting
in Mexico — A panel of Mexican judges rejected the call for a
universal recount of Mexico’s July election, thereby confirming PAN
candidate Felipe Calderón will become the next President of
Mexico in December.
His margin is barely a half of one per cent. Calderón will try
to govern with barely a third of the country’s support. Polls indicate
“between a quarter and a third” of the voters believe the election was
a fraud orchestrated by the incumbent President Vicente Fox and his PAN
supporters, according to El Universal (online) on September 11.
The Mexican voting process was widely praised and included checks,
balances, courts, recounts, etc. It was a very impressive process
highly satisfying for the U.S. press and most good government
observers. But Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his party
proclaim fraud.
When Fox tried to give his last “informe” to the Mexican Congress he
was hooted out of the building.
Meanwhile the narcotics cartels appear to be enjoying a resurgence.
Five decapitated heads were dumped in the middle of a dance floor in
Uruapan and the head of the Nuevo Leon state narcotics police was
assassinated with four shots to the back of the head.
Mexico did not have a good election but they did have an election.
Americans who cynically dismiss our southern neighbor had best suppress
their snickers because a minority of the popular vote now governs us
both, the U.S. and Mexico.
López Obrador says he will establish a “parallel” government,
whatever that is. But he is not a lawyer.
Texas Attorney
General “On Watch”— At an Austin meeting at
the Omni Austin hotel last
Friday the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas (FOIFT) met in
solemn convention to hear former Texas Attorney General John Cornyn —
now our U.S. Senator — and current Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
“Standing fast for open government” in the words of an Austin American
editorial, the FOIFT and Texas’s first and only Republican Attorneys
General deplored assaults on what they called “open government.”
AG Abbott, a candidate for reelection, was not encumbered by any
opposing views from the Democrats’ nominee David Van Os. Nor were the
proponents of “open government” burdened by the opposing views of their
adversaries in any current litigation. It was all rather like the
Alpine Avalanche whose editorial page weekly promotes two Republican
incumbents’ columns while stating “Letters from political candidates
will not be printed.”
According to a story by Polly Ross Hughes in the September 8 Houston
Chronicle, “Texas Attorney General warns lawsuit threatens state open
meetings law,” AG Abbott sees himself severely challenged by Alpine’s
Avinash Rangra and Anna Monclova. Their lawsuit “aims to lock those
meeting doors and toss ‘we the people’ out on the street,” Abbott told
the conventioneers at the posh Austin hotel. The AG’s outrage led him
into the mixed metaphor jungle of “smoke-filled rooms” where decisions
would be made “without the benefit of sunshine” (Rangra has been
sighted smoking cigars but Monclova is smoke free. Both enjoy sunshine).
AG Abbott did say one interesting thing. He said, widely quoted, ”Not
on my watch as attorney general are we going to have the open meetings
law of the state of Texas struck down.”
His “watch”? Is Mr. Abbott taking the “general” in his title too
seriously? Where was Mr. Abbott “Watching” when a handful of
legislators determined behind closed doors just how billions of dollars
would be spent? See “Decisions Come Behind Closed Doors At the Capitol
— Backrooms Still the Base of Power” by Mark Lisheron, 5/25/05, Austin
American-Statesman online.
But … never mind. It is another election year. AG Abbott has an
election.
Military
lawyers speak — Lawyers in Washington, D.C., lawyers in
Austin, lawyers in Mexico City — many lawyers are very influential in
our political lives and not always do they live up to our best
expectations. But there was an exception which became public last week.
The Bush Administration is forced to revise their procedures for
incarcerating enemy aliens. Last week in congressional hearings and in
the press we learned that for a long time the more thuggish policies of
the neoconservative faction in the Bush Administration were opposed.
The opposition comes from most Democrats, of course. It also comes from
several influential Republican U.S. senators with military experience —
John McCain, John Warner and Lindsay Graham.
But we also learned that the senior military lawyers of the armed
services have been fighting the Bush Administration’s proposals from
within the Administration’s bureaucratic labyrinth. Last week they
testified. All said that even the detainees at Guantanamo and in secret
prisons all over the world have certain rights. The Los Angeles Times
(online) of September 8, “Top Military Lawyers Dislike Tribunal Plan,”
and quoted U.S. Marine Corps Staff Judge Advocate Brigadier General
James C. Walker:
“I’m not aware of
any situation in the world where there is a system
of
jurisprudence that is recognized by civilized people, where an
individual can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence
against him. And I don’t think that the United States needs to become
the first in that scenario.” •
(Also
published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas September 14, 2006.)
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