Legislating Violations of the Constitution (ACLU swills at the public trough)

The Washinton Post ^ | September 30, 2006 | Erwin Chemerinsky

[Mrs. Don-o]

With little public attention or even notice, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. The Public Expression of Religion Act - H.R. 2679 - provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorneys fees. The bill has only one purpose: to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion.

[snip]

The attorneys' fees statute has worked well for almost 30 years. Lawyers receive attorneys' fees under the law only if their claim is meritorious and they win in court. ...Despite the effectiveness of this statute, conservatives in the House of Representatives have now passed an insidious bill to try and limit enforcement of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, by denying attorneys fees to lawyers who successfully challenge government actions as violating this key constitutional provision. For instance, a lawyer who successfully challenged unconstitutional prayers in schools or unconstitutional symbols on religious property or impermissible aid to religious groups would -- under the bill -- not be entitled to recover attorneys' fees.

...Such a bill could have only one motive: to protect unconstitutional government actions advancing religion. The religious right, which has been trying for years to use government to advance their religious views, wants to reduce the likelihood that their efforts will be declared unconstitutional. Since they cannot change the law of the Establishment Clause by statute, they have turned their attention to trying to prevent its enforcement by eliminating the possibility for recovery of attorneys' fees.

Those who successfully prove the government has violated their constitutional rights would, under the bill, be required to pay their own legal fees.

[Mrs. Don-o]

For decades the taxpayers have been required to pick up the check as the ACLU feasts at the banquet table for performing the following "public services": stopping valedictorians from thanking God in their commencement speech, banning the display of "unconstitutional symbols" such as crosses at memorials for fallen soldiers, and suing school districts for "impermissible" abstinence education.

That's right: they get to blow up the foundations of our culture, and we get to pay for it.

If the U.S. House of Representatives can separate the ACLU guzzlers from the public trough, I'll send a love letter to my Congresscritter.

[squarebarb]

"unconstitutional symbols on religious property"? Did I read that right?

[Mrs. Don-o]

ACLU ping

[Mrs. Don-o]

That's what the guy said.

[jeremiah]

This is one of the biggest shots of the culture war. I hope it kills the intended victim....the ACLU.

[darkangel82]

This is 'journalism'? I wrote better articles than this for my elementary school paper when I was in fifth grade. If I was this guy's editor he'd be fired.

[BW2221]

I have two questions:

1. Where in the Constitution does it say the ACLU should be publicly funded? Must be something I missed.

2. Is Professor Erwin Chemerinsky an ACLU member? If so, it should be stated.

[muawiyah]

And Liberals thought Richard Cohen said he was just blowing wind when he said the overuse of hard narcotics is a big problem in the Washington Post newsroom.

Apparantly the practice has spread to the editorial board.

[BW2221]

If you go to the full article in washingtonpost.com, you'll see the writer is a law professor at Duke (and I would venture to guess an ACLU member).

[muawiyah]

And Liberals thought Richard Cohen was just blowing wind when he said the overuse of hard narcotics is a big problem in the Washington Post newsroom.

Apparantly the practice has spread to the editorial board.

Correction

[darkangel82]

Probably is. This guy is a law professor? Ironic, considering how ignorant he is of the Constitution.

[JCEccles]

he bill has only one purpose: to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion.

Wrong. It will not prohibit a single lawsuit.

Its purpose is to prevent liberal judges from stealing taxpayers monies to fund the ACLU and rewarding its bullying tactics in seeking to punish and destroy traditional religious faith and ensconcing atheism as the official state religion in violation of the First Amendment.

In short, if the ACLU and its supporters want to continue their brutal assault on the First Amendment, they'll have to do it on their own dime--not the US taxpayer's.

[BW2221]

Like many liberal judges, the "not-so-good" professor believes the Constitution should mean what he wants it to mean (at any given time).

[Unam Sanctam]

The First Amendment has a Free Exercise Clause as well as an Establishment Clause. The ACLU conveniently forgets that.

[Condor51]

The mook who wrote this tripe is not on the WAPO editrial board. If you go to the article it states at the end:

Erwin Chemerinsky is the Alston & Bird Professor of Law and Political Science, at Duke University.

I'm also going to take a wild a$$ guess that he's a member in good standing of the ACLU.

[thomaswest]

However, this bad law is going to hurt the ACLJ and Thomas Moore Center and other conservative groups who do stand up for free exercise. Just as much as the ACLU and maybe worse.

The law of unintended consequences is going to bite.

[JOE43270]

The only way the aclu "American communist leftover union" uses the Constitution is after they twist it into what they want it to be.

[BW2221]

Like you, I suspect he is an ACLU member. If so, the WaPo should have stated so.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Same place that it separates Church and State; "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

'Respect' per my W7NCD, a relation to or concern with something usually specified. 'Establishment,' a public or private institution.

[donmeaker]

I figure lawyers should be paid by the people who they work for.

If the people who they are working for don't want to pay them, it would say something about the quality of the services rendered.

Lawyers are highly paid, and they should only be consulted and their services employed when there is significant harm. If they are paid using the coercive power of the Court when there is not significant harm, the productive powers of the country are stunted, and the treasure of the country is shifted to the pockets of the lawyers. Another name for Tyranny.