Wednesday, February 25, 2004
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AFFAIRS OF STATE (Column)
There’s a Right Way and a Wrong Way to Challenge Laws
By DAVID KLINE
Breaking the law seems to be the new fad, even for those who are paid specifically to uphold the law and those who were elected to write new ones.
The mayor of San Francisco continues to break California’s clearly worded statute banning homosexual marriage, openly mocking the rule of law.
In New Mexico, a county clerk announced Friday that she is taking the same route, issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples to challenge her state’s less specific prohibition of same-sex marriage.
In other headlines, a company plans to open a store in Sacramento next month to facilitate the sale of prescription drugs from Canada. This despite a federal law which quite clearly bans the importation of drugs from foreign countries.
Several Democratic state lawmakers also are pushing for ways to bring Canadian drugs into the United States. Ironically, many of these same lawmakers will run for Congress when they get term-limited out of the Legislature, campaigning to run the federal government whose authority they now refuse to recognize.
Elsewhere on the drug front, stores are popping up around the state selling “medical marijuana.” Federal law clearly states that selling pot is illegal, but the stores are doing brisk business anyway, often with a nod and a wink from irresponsible city officials.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers and the governor continue debating whether or not they should issue drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens—people who are not even legally entitled to be in this country, let alone drive on its highways.
In Los Angeles, another illegality is going ignored, this one involving a government prosecutor, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. In January, a column by MetNews Editor Roger M. Grace revealed that Delgadillo did not meet the qualifications for office when he was elected, and thus is not legally entitled to hold office.
Delgadillo’s situation is quite clear. The City Charter says a person qualifies for the city attorney post only if he or she was eligible to practice law during the five years prior to the election. Delgadillo was not eligible during all five years, because he had voluntarily gone on inactive status with the State Bar. A lawyer who is not an active member of the State Bar cannot practice law in California, plain and simple.
Still, Delgadillo has refused to resign, and Attorney General Bill Lockyer has refused to step in to do something about it. Lockyer is described as the top law enforcement officer in the state, but he is sitting idly by while a law is broken in front of his face, much like he did when San Francisco began issuing illegal marriage licenses.
It’s tempting to question whether Lockyer’s practice of looking the other way can be attributed to the fact that San Francisco’s mayor and Los Angeles’ city attorney both are members of his own Democratic Party. Would the situation be the same if the city attorney were a conservative Republican, or if a conservative city mayor was issuing concealed weapons permits to all comers and declared abortion to be illegal within city limits?
Whatever their motivation, the scofflaws and sleeping watchdogs are chipping away at the foundation of our successful system of government—the rule of law, kept intact through a system of checks and balances on government power.
There are proper ways to challenge existing laws without simply breaking them. For example, the ban on homosexual marriage could have been challenged by having two men apply for a marriage license and get rejected. They then would have standing to challenge the rejection in court and make their legal arguments.
Same goes for the bans on drug imports and marijuana sales. Activists could set up test cases, go to court and hope for the best.
Federal immigration laws, too, can be changed rather than simply broken. If pro-immigration activists can get enough support in Congress and the White House, they can pass new laws to open the borders.
There is a right way and a wrong for people to go about challenging laws they don’t like. This current trend of anarchy is the wrong way, and must be stopped.
If our current elected officials don’t respect the law enough to uphold it and defend it from all enemies, foreign and domestic, then the voters ought to make some changes.
— Capitol News Service
Copyright 2004, Metropolitan News Company