I’m rather surprised to see one of the local bird cage liners, hardly a friend to our issue, coming out against Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s refusal to defend a law she doesn’t like:
Our attorney general should not be deciding which laws she will or will not enforce. We should expect her to uphold all of the laws on the books, not just the ones she deems worthy.
I agree, but I do think if an official has a good-faith belief that a law is plainly unconstitutional, they have a duty to not defend or enforce it. Kane did not make her argument from a standpoint of constitutionality, however: she just doesn’t like the law. Probably more accurate is that Bloomberg put a lot of money behind her, and she needs to ensure he gets a good return on his investment.
Can she be impeached? Because quite frankly an open admission that she will refuse to uphold her oath of office (with no basis in law or precedent) to me is certainly evidence that she is not fit to serve in that capacity, and should be removed from office.
Sad, really.
It could be a lot worse — what if she put on a sloppy bad-faith defense which wasn’t obviously fraudulent enough to get in trouble with courts and bar associations?
This is the problem with government prosecutions of all kinds — the accountability is so divorced from the victims that corruption is inevitable (and corruption means for more than mere bribery).
The problem that it is impossible to force a prosecutor to pursue a case diligently has been noted as far up as the Supreme Court. What should be done here is to appoint a special prosecutor funded with an open draw on the Attorney General’s budget.
Why should her view of the law be any different than that of those currently picking, choosing, and sometimes just making up the law in the national .gov?
I mean, who’s going to stop her? In the old days the people with feathers, tar, and rails did the job; today, not so much.
These moves are part of the destruction of our legal system, the AG state and federal ignores laws that are not PC and in the process creates chaos in the courts, while at the same time attacking law abiding citizens for felonies against political correctness. Such as owning guns. As the system collapses they grab more and more power by claiming they need it to get control over the problem they created. This is all part of “Rules for Radicals” which every patriot should read (know your enemy ) You have noted how the cries for more gun control come with fewer and fewer prosecutions, citizens go to jail, criminals run amok.
I watched the debate as they (don’t remember who) tried to argue that the bill was germane. It was absurd. Something along the lines of “Because stealing metals can prohibit you from gun ownership, and this also deals with gun laws, it deals with a single subject.” It was absurd. She could just as easily have directed her office to try their best to defend it, and failed – because it’s indefensible. IMHO and all that. But really, the idea that enhanced penalties for metal theft has anything to do with gun law preemption is just absurd.
I have thought about this and I keep coming back to: So what? Does anyone really think that the state does not have the power to preempt firearms laws? Under what theory? Who is going to challenge this law forcing the AG to defend or not defend it?
ok, so she will not go after localities. But, there will still be individuals with standing to challenge local firearms laws… it’s hard for me to believe that localities will successfully argue that the law is unconstitutional, or invalid on some other theory. Even if localities try to argue it, there will be plenty of firepower at the appellate level to defend the law. Hard for me to see appellate judges going for this, even if the AG is not defending the law.
Seems to me that this is a big non-event that garners her political points, with no real impact.