Salt City Sinner

Posted 8/27/12 by Law Nerd. (tl;dr summary for our philistine readers: see title--constitution/SCOTUS says) My apologies to any readers who for some bizarre reason were looking forward to another of my legal rants after my last . I graduated, then studied and sat for the Vermont bar exam, and I offer no further excuse above that. I have sprouted knobbly little legal wings, and hope to be a fledgling attorney in a few months. Results are out in September.  Job as "not-yet-licensed junior associate to whom all your difficult cases are belong" begins in one week. Unless you've been living under a bridge and growing troll-like protuberances, you've heard of Rep. Todd Akin's (R-MO) recent shenanigans in the world of reproductive rights.  Specifically, I refer to Rep. Akins' " misogynist claptrap ," in which the Senate-hopeful attempted to distinguish legitimate rape (from what I know not, though we did   later learn  that he actually meant "...

"Hey, Charles! It's super cool that you've been at Pioneer Park and elsewhere taking pictures of a growing, self-sustaining movement of serious activists and also the two or three dudes rocking Guy Fawkes masks, but what is going on with that whole 'redistricting' thing? Have we figured out the creative and amusing way in which the Utah GOP has decided to slip a shiv into the vitals of local Democrats?" I'm glad you asked! I admit that of late I've neglected this story a bit, and my apologies. The "good" news is that the redistricting process has made little-to-no progress, and is slowly unfolding like a repulsive strip tease performed by a fat, drunken clown. Lee Davidson of the Salt Lake Tribune provides some illumination : Lawmakers began a Redistricting Committee hearing on Friday in a stalemate over how to redraw congressional districts. They ended it that way, too.   But in between, Democrats and reform groups zinged Repu...

A quick update: since my last posts on the Utah Legislature's redistricting plan for 2011 (first crafted by a fair and impartial committee of 14 Republicans and 5 Democrats): at the request of Governor Gary Herbert, the State Senate has redrawn their initially proposed plan for how to divide and/or conquer Salt Lake City. The shabby treatment that Salt Lake City is receiving at the sausage-fingered hand of rural legislators is now being referred to as the "pizza slice" plan or plans - as in, "we will carve up Salt Lake's population of liberals, homosexuals and anarchists into manageable slices, and then devour them." The mix is ostensibly intended to "create districts with a mixture of urban and rural population(s)." I don't think it would be telling any secrets to note that I'm opposed to any plan that breaks up the urban population to consolidate even more power in the hands of the Utah GOP. This action by the Leg means tha...

This morning's episode of Good Morning Utah featured an amusing update from failed gubernatorial candidate Morgan Philpot on one of the more idiotic conspiracy theories I've heard lately. Given a 15 - 4 majority on the Redistricting Committee, a 55 - 20 majority in the House, a 21 - 8 majority in the Senate, the Governorship, and a 4-1 lead in the United States Congress, what would the logical appraisal of this situation be for the Utah Republican Party? If you guessed "whine and bitch like a bunch of cranky toddlers," you are a winner! As GMU has been telling us (with a little help from Carl Wimmer ), Herbert is apparently afraid of a confrontation with Jim Matheson, the lone "Democrat" representing Utah in the House of Representatives. Matheson, you see, has threatened to run for...er....Governor, or Senator, or something... if the current redistricting scheme puts him out of a job. It has been reliably hilarious to watch political cannibals like O...

I noted in a previous entry that Utah's hit comedy reality show, "Government," had missed a major opportunity for partisan laughter recently. It seems that, given the chance to shaft our state's Democratic minority by eliminating one state congressional seat on Salt Lake City's West Side (for you non-Utahns, the West Side is Salt Lake City's most ethnically and economically diverse community) to create an extra one in Utah County, Utah Republicans blinked. Consider that mistake corrected. From Lisa Roche, writing for KSL : Utah State Democratic Party Chairman Jim Dabakis said Wednesday the party will take the state to court unless Republicans back away from a controversial new congressional  map ... Democrats have data showing that while roughly 40 percent of Utahns vote Democratic, the party holds on average less than 30 percent of elected offices. The lawyers' memo suggests that the court look for "partisan symmetry" between votes cast an...

RedState's Erick Erickson, who was tapped by CNN to be the voice of "netroots conservatism," has  had enough : To paraphrase Ann, a lot of us fell in love with Sarah Palin because of her enemies* and a lot of us have fallen out of love with Sarah Palin because of her fans...To not bow at the throne of Sarah [Palin] you get disowned. You get attacked. You have people drum up stories attacking your credibility. “Oh, Perry announced at his event, he must be bought and paid for,” etc. Ironically, some of the very people going after this site’s and my credibility — claiming we’re pressured to do things by higher ups at Eagle Publishing — are people who were on payrolls advocating for clients while refusing to disclose potential conflicts among other things.  Whether Palin will actually get into the race or not, it's worth noting that the left aren't the only people less than thrilled at what "their" party is apparently planning (or not planni...

Matt Taibbi is feeling kind of queasy : ... for the new GOP, compromise of any kind defeats their central purpose, which is political totale krieg. This party's entire reason for being is conflict and aggression. There is no underlying patriotic instinct to find middle ground with the rest of us, because the party doesn't have a vision for society that includes anyone outside the tent. This is a more advanced and appropriate way to look at the GOP right now than my old " Easter egg " metaphor - it's not so much that there are no Republican policy solutions in sight as that they only exist, as Taibbi writes, to create "conflict and aggression." I've always been queasy about piling on against the Republicans because it's intellectually too easy; I also worry a lot that the habit pundits have of choosing sides and simply beating on the other party contributes to the extremist tone of the culture war. But the time is coming when we a...

The fix is in! From Lee Davidson ( for the Tribun e): Republicans plan to let Democrats win a small battle or two but force them to lose the overall war on Wednesday as the Legislature’s Redistricting Committee debates new Utah Senate districts... Republicans plan to let Democrats win a small battle or two but force them to lose the overall war on Wednesday as the Legislature’s Redistricting Committee debates new Utah Senate districts... Republicans do plan to add a seat in Utah County by consoli dating  the Senate’s current seven Democratic districts — all in Salt Lake County — into six, eliminating one.  It's good that the UT GOP has agreed to leave Senator Robles' seat alone: a merger with Davis County would have been insane enough to attract unwelcome scrutiny (even in this state). Senator Robles' district on Salt Lake's west side has absolutely nothing in common with Senator Liljenquist's Davis County district, and combining the two would have been bad fo...

After Mitt Romney's last foray into the land of mysteriously dis/appearing corporations and their attendant luxurious cash baths, I thought we had seen the last of this type of thing. Nope! From Talking Points Memo : The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 have filed complaints with the FEC and DOJ calling for an investigation into the activities of two companies that appear to have been used to funnel funds to a Super PAC created by former Romney campaign staffers. The complaints come on the heels of a another the two groups filed against the first phantom company, W Spann LLC, was discovered to have masked the true identity of a $1 million mystery donor to Restore Our Future [Romney's super PAC]... The two watchdogs groups are now asking the FEC and DOJ to formally investigate the activities of the F8 LLC and Eli Publishing L.C. for possible violations of the ban on making contributions in the name of another and for failing to organize and register as a poli...

It turns out that James O'Keefe, the goon who was arrested yesterday for allegedly attempting to wiretap Senator Mary Landrieu's phones, was scheduled to speak at a Salt Lake County Republican fundraiser. From the Trib : Salt Lake County Republicans are scrambling to line up a new keynote fundraising speaker after the arrest Tuesday of their scheduled first choice, filmmaker James O'Keefe, on charges of attempting to tamper with the phone system of a U.S. senator. "The allegations and arrest today certainly change our plans," county GOP Chairman Thomas Wright said in a telephone interview with The Tribune. "We'll be announcing a new speaker shortly." As of Tuesday night, the party's Web site, slcogop.com, still advertised O'Keefe as the guest speaker for the Feb. 4 Lincoln Day Dinner. His topic was to be "his national exposé of ACORN's unethical behavior, his changes in Congress and [how he will] inspire our Party's passion for ...

From NOLA.com : Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility. Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony. O'Keefe's previous hijinks were quite a hit in the conservative community, and managed to bring down a storm of opprobrium upon ACORN. Here's hoping that Mr. O'Keefe has now learned that there is a boundary between hilarious right-wing pranks and felonies. Then again, what's a felony or two between ...

Utah Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack , Republican of Syracuse, has been busted for drunk driving .